FDA Cigarette Warning Label
Perhaps putting a little fear into smokers will prod more people to give up cigarettes. That’s the approach being taken by federal health officials, who have unveiled nine graphic warning labels that will cover the top half of cigarette packs starting next year.
As The Washington Post reports, the scary images include “a man smoking through a tracheotomy hole in his throat, a horribly diseased lung, mottled teeth and gums, a man breathing with an oxygen mask and a man’s body with a large scar running down the chest.” The accompanying messages will include “Warning: Cigarettes are addictive,” “Warning: Cigarettes cause cancer” and “Warning: Smoking can kill you.”
“These labels are frank, honest and powerful depictions of the health risks of smoking, and they will help encourage smokers to quit, and prevent children from smoking,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a news release.
Public health advocacy groups lauded the FDA’s long-awaited move. But, as The New York Times reports, the four leading tobacco companies have threatened legal action. Already under appeal is a decision by a federal judge in Kentucky last year that cleared the way for the warning label images unveiled today.
The tobacco companies have claimed that the graphic images, which cigarette makers are required to use on packages and in advertising starting in September, 2012, will violate their property and free-speech rights by dwarfing their brand names in retail displays. Industry officials also have complained that the warnings unfairly demonize tobacco companies and stigmatize smokers.
A submission to the FDA by three of the industry leaders — R. J. Reynolds, Lorillard and Commonwealth Brands — said that the “nonfactual and controversial images” were “intended to elicit loathing, disgust, and repulsion” about a product that is legal.
The new labels represent the first major change in tobacco warnings in more than 25 years. They were authorized under the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which authorized the FDA to regulate, but not ban, tobacco products.
At least 39 other countries, including Canada and many in Europe, already have imposed more prominent warnings, including some with graphic photographs. A recent international survey published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that graphic warnings appear to be an effective way to coax smokers to consider quitting. Australia is considering requiring both graphic warnings and plain packaging that would eliminate the tobacco companies’ logos.
In the U.S., the new packaging also will include a toll-free telephone number for help in quitting smoking.
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This concept is BS. Smokers smoke out of fear to begin with, so adding more fear in the form of pictures will only make them smoke more. Any PSA about the dangers of smoking causes every smoker watching it to light up. It’s no secret that smokers light up when nervous, so I see right through this latest money-making ruse of “helping smokers quit” perpetrated by the government and its sponsor, big tobacco.