graphic warnings

Show smoking’s effects on packs says Dr Antonio Anzueto

According to an international expert on respiratory diseases, all cigarettes sold must have graphic images showing the side effects of smoking.
Dr. Antonio Anzueto, a professor at the University of Texas Health Center, cited the rising number of smokers in the Asia-Pacific.
Scary antismoking images could dissuade people from lighting up, said Anzueto during a press conference in Singapore.

Yussuf Saloojee about the need for graphic warnings

Here is the presentation given by Yussuf Saloojee in Cape Town during the 38th World Conference on Lung Health organized by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.
LISTEN (5 min)

Filipinos want graphic warnings on cigarette packs

An unpublished survey done by the Philippine College of Chest Physicians for the September-October period showed that over 90 percent of Filipino smokers surveyed want picture-based warnings on the cigarette packs, instead of the usual textual-based ones.
The study, said anti-smoking group Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance, Philippines (FCAP), shows that even smokers know how effective picture-based warnings could be.

FCTC: countries start drafting the guidelines for graphic health warnings

Some 150 delegates from the Philippines and 35 other countries are meeting beginning Wednesday to Friday (Nov. 7-9) at the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region office in Manila to draft the guidelines for putting these visual health warnings on the packages of tobacco products and other provisions of Article 11 of the global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) of WHO.

Source : bayanihan.org

UK: Imperial Tobacco CEO negates the impact of graphic warnings

Imperial Tobacco CEO Gareth Davis says he does not believe graphic warnings would change the behavior of smokers and he has seen no evidence that they have an impact.  That's a denial of the existing scientific studies and the line given by the civil servants who also oppose graphic warnings (like in France).

Philippines: A Petition for a New Law and Graphic Warnings

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines (FCAP) is gathering one million signatures to convince lawmakers to file the bill. Gruesome photos of health effects on cigarette packets are aimed at discouraging people from smoking.

A report from the European Parliament's Environment Committee supports graphic warnings

LOTHIANS-BASED Euro MP David Martin has welcomed tough new moves by Brussels to deter youngsters from smoking.

The European Parliament's environment committee voted in favour of a report which proposes young people should not have access to cigarette machines and that hard-hitting picture warnings should be mandatory on all tobacco products sold in the EU.

They also called for all EU countries to ban smoking in indoor public places within two years.

Mr Martin, who sits on the environment committee, said: "Member states must commit themselves to reduce smoking among young people by at least 50 per cent by 2025 and I am pleased my colleagues voted to accept these proposals." Source: The Scotsman

China: Graphic Warnings in 2009, maybe earlier.

Chinese tobacco producers must print warning symbols, such as pictures of human skeletons and rotten lungs, on cigarette packages by January 2009 to realize the country's commitment to the "Framework Convention on Tobacco Control," an official with the Ministry of Health said today.

Source: Shanghai Daily

Finland: graphic warnings to be introduced

Mandatory pictures indicating the dangers of smoking are to be included on cigarette packages in Finland. The newspaper Kaleva writes that Social Services Minister Paula Risikko will sign a statute ordering the use of the images in the autumn.

United Kingdom: Smokers to face picture warnings... in september 2009

Images highlighting the dangers of smoking will be printed on all tobacco products sold in the UK by the end of 2009, under regulations being set out.

Manufacturers will have to start complying from October next year.
After a public consultation 15 images, including ones of diseased lungs, have been chosen to accompany text warnings about lung cancer and heart disease.

Ukraine: How the industry managed to weaken the FCTC provisions

This is the text of a poster to be presented by K.  Krasovsky and T.  Andreeva at the upcoming 4th European conference on Tobacco or Health.

India: The pictorial warnings should be in place by January 2008

The skull and crossbones will now be "optional" and the image of a dead body will be replaced.

Source: The Times of India

Thailand: A controversial picture on the pack to be replaced

The Tobacco Control Committee is to launch a new health warning picture on cigarette packs this week after the use of a conch in one of its designs stirred up public uproar.

The committee has withdrawn the old picture, which showed a hand-held conch being used to pour water onto the hand of a dead person to imply that smoking can cause death.

In Thai tradition, a conch is normally used for auspicious ceremonies such as weddings, not funerals.

Source: Bangkok Post 

The case for plain (generic) tobacco packaging

Becky Freeman and Simon Chapman have produced a comprehensive review (pdf) of relevant evidence about the plain or generic packaging of tobacco products. It draws from sources including internal tobacco industry documents, tobacco industry trade publications and a recent 2007 Morgan Stanley report which declared plain packaging to be one of three outstanding concerns today (along with tax and hiding retail displays).

Australia: 16 months after the federal government made graphic pictures compulsory smokers are still easily able to buy packs without graphic warnings

"The tobacco companies fought long and hard to delay and downsize the more effective graphic health warnings," said Professor Simon Chapman, from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

"Now, by stockpiling the old warnings, they're still delaying giving smokers the full picture about the diseases and disabilities caused by their products."

US Senators support new graphic warnings

Cigarette warning labels should cover at least half of the package's front and back and use graphic color photos of cancer and other health effects to deter smokers, U.S. Senators said.

The effort is part of ongoing debate on a bill that would allow Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products, a proposal supported by public health groups and the nation's largest cigarette maker (Philip Morris).

Warning: Poison - The Times of India

An editorial form The Times of  India.

Ministers defer decision on the proposal to print skull and crossbones on tobacco products

From The Statesman: In new Dehhli on July 11, to the disappointment of anti-smoking campaigners, the group of ministers today failed to take a decision on the proposal to print skull and crossbones on tobacco products to inform uneducated masses about the harmful effects of smoking. The GoM deferred the final decision for later this month.

Tobacco pack warnings: Vietnam has yet to get it right!

Sounds Familiar??
Vietnam Tobacco Industry’s (VINATABA) reasons why Vietnam cannot have picture-based pack warnings.
Excerpts from VINATABA’s presentation at the Workshop on Development of New Health Warnings, July 3, 2006
• Most countries in the world are using text-only health warnings, not pictorial ones.
. We are a poor developing country with outdated production technology and uncontrollable cigarette smuggling.
• Printing pictorial health warnings will be costly for the tobacco industry.

Packaging galore in Malaysia

It just took one clause in Malaysia’s Control of Tobacco Product Regulations 2004 (CTPR 2004) to start a nightmare for tobacco control advocacy.

That clause explicitly stated that restrictions on advertising “shall not apply to any tobacco product advertisement in or on a packing containing a tobacco product.”

Hence, although the regula- tions are quite comprehensive, the tobacco industry has since exploited this loophole by aggressively turning cigarette packs into an advertising medium.

Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco love Thais more than Filipinos

Thais have long been accustomed to seeing graphic health warnings on cigarette packs sold in their country.

What many may not realize is that Marlboro and Mild Seven packs sold in Thailand are made in the Philippines by Philip Morris International (PMI) and JT International (JTI) licensee Fortune Tobacco.

Introducing picture based health warnings on cigarette packages in the Caribbean.

This article about picture based health warnings was originally published in the Alliance Bulletin # 68 (July 3, 2007 p. 5). It is co-signed by Eva Lewis-Fuller (Jamaica), Adrian Randall (Barbados), Beatriz Marcet Champagne (InterAmerican Heart Foundation)
Regulations governing tobacco package warnings in the Caribbean in almost all countries are seriously outdated or non-existent.

Picture by Veronica Reyes Serra

Can cigarette warnings counterbalance effects of smoking scenes in movies?

That's the title of a recent research by Golmier I, Chebat JC, Gelinas-Chebat C that looks very interesting. Unfortunately I have only been able to find a short résumé. I'll teel you more when I have read the whole document.

Graphic Warnings in the New Media Campaign in New South Wales

This is the new TV campaign in New South Wales that airs from 12 April 2007 to end of June. Do you want heart disease or lung cancer? WATCH (MMC).

Also on YouTube.

More about Miguel Garcia Martin, The Face of Chile’s Anti-Tobacco Campaign

Liz Borkowski wrote this very interesting post about Miguel. Good pictures too. The questions that come to my mind are: why did they pick up only one person? only one picture? How did they choose him rather than someone else? How long do they intend to keep this image? Do they plan to change it after a "while"?

Switzerland adopts the EU graphic warnings

The EU graphic warnings will start appearing on the cigarette packs sold in Switzerland in 2008.

Hong Kong's Graphic Warnings

I found the 6 pictures (in chinese and in english) on the excellent site of Physicians for a Smokefree Canada. They also explain what are the new regulations that will start applying on October 2007 .

Bidi Manufacturers Opposed to Graphic Warnings

Their main argument seems to be jobs...

Oudoor Ads About Warnings in Western Australia

Make Smoking History has commenced a new outdoor advertising campaign that draws attention to the graphic health warnings on cigarette packs. Specifically the advertising focuses on two warnings: "Smoking causes blindness" and "Smoking causes mouth and throat cancer".
Pictures are on pdf format:

• Bus Shelter Mouth
• Bus Shelter Eye
• Billboard Mouth
• Billboard Eye

Graphic Warnings in India in June

Pictures of a corpse and mouth cancers will be displayed on cigarette packets in India from June in a bid to shock people into stopping smoking, health officials said on Tuesday.

Other packs will show a toddler with tubes running up his nostrils with the caption "Your smoking kills babies", rather than the milder, pictureless warning "Cigarette smoking is injurious to health" currently displayed.

‘You wouldn’t ignore this warning. Why ignore them on cigarette packs?’

I found this on Cherry Flava, a blog from South Africa.

An international study by Rob Cunningham

Rob Cunningham has collected and analyzed the most recent information available about graphic warnings within a document entitled:  "Package Warnings: Overview of International Developments".

  Read his study (in pdf format, maybe only accessible to gloablink's members).

Graphic Warnings spark rise in Quitline calls

The number of calls to Victoria's anti-smoking Quitline has increased by more than 27 per cent in the year since graphic new health warnings were introduced to cigarette packs a year ago.

Thursday marks the first anniversary of the introduction of the graphic warnings, which feature confronting images of stroke, lung cancer, blindness and heart disease caused by smoking, and the phasing out of previous text-only warnings.

Quit executive director Todd Harper said more than 28,000 people phoned Quitline in the past year, compared with just under 22,000 callers in the previous 12 months.

Gar Mahood and Health Warnings

Gar Mahood speaks in Brussels about how the Canadian government was "convinced" to install big health warnings, eventually with pictures, on the cigarette packs. It took a lot of advocacy and lobbying.
LISTEN

Cyber-rendez-vous with Markos Kyprianou

Q1. Mr Commissioner, our previous interview was more than a year ago (oct 15, 2005). Have you seen progress in 2006 in tobacco control at the EU level?

Markos Kyprianou: There has been a considerable progress in tobacco control over the last year.

Markos Kyprianou's about Graphic Warnings

This is the text of the speech given by the European Commissioner for Health at the inauguration of the Photo Exhibition about The Power of Communications Against Tobacco in Brussels, 31 January 2007.

It is titled: The Role of Pictorial Health Warnings in Europe's Tobacco Control Policy

Shockvertising vs Lovertising by Sergei Ivanov

Sergei Ivanov (aka Xgeronimo) is a smoker and a communication consultant. He explains on YouTube why he thinks the frightening graphic warnings are counterproductive and what -in his opinion- could be an alternative and a more effective way to communicate with the smokers. Some of his suggestions at the end of his 9 min presentation are interesting. I certainly can see value in producing positive messages (as he suggests) along the negative ones (he detests).

More about Don Miguel

Por favor, don Miguel, no me mire tanto. Mire que si usted perdió su laringe, yo perderé mi cabeza.
Found on Flickr, Picture and text by Veronica Reyes Serra

Chilean graphic warnings

In August 2006, Chile adopted a new tobacco law which, in addition to establishing smoking restrictions in public places, banning advertising and the promotion of 'light' brands, required that all cigarette packages display a graphic health warning that occupies 50% of the package surface.
The requirement for new health warnings came into effect on November 12, 2006.  (Source: Physicians for a smokefree Canada)

Exhibit and seminar about graphic warnings in Brussels

"The Power of Communications Against Tobacco" is an exhibition and seminar being held in Brussels from 31 January to 2 February 2007 at the Bibliothèque Solvay.
The aim of the exhibition is to highlight the importance that better communications and powerful images can have in the fight against tobacco. In organising this event, we have the support of Jules Maaten, MEP and EP Rapporteur on the European legislation introducing large and optional pictorial warnings on tobacco products (the latter now being introduced in Belgium) and Markos Kyprianou, Commissioner for Health.
For information and registration contact Catherine St Laurent

Nota: Catherine St-Laurent is Consultant to Pfizer (www.pfizer.com), GSK (www.gsk.com) and Novartis (www.novartis.com) Burson-Marsteller
Tel: +32 499 20 44 61
catherine_st-laurent@be.bm.com
Burson-Marsteller is the supporting agency for “The Power of Communications Against Tobacco”