United States: new health warnings on packages

According to the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), new graphic warnings about the health risks of smoking will appear on tobacco packages in the United States, starting in June 2021. These warnings must be displayed in a way that is highly visible to the consumer and those around them, and must represent the top half of the tobacco packages, on the front and back. Other countries have adopted much more ambitious provisions. However, this is progress for the country [1]. Indeed, in the United States, the methods of implementing health messages had remained unchanged since 1984, and their effectiveness was particularly reduced due to the small size of the warnings, their location, and their lack of images, as the director of the Center for Tobacco Products of the FDA points out.[2]. These messages have a primary objective of providing information on a certain number of health risks linked to smoking, often unsuspected by smokers themselves (bladder cancer, blindness, sterility, impotence, etc.). But health warnings, accompanied by images, are particularly dissuasive among the younger generations, the core target of the tobacco industry. Indeed, the tobacco packet, considered by cigarette manufacturers as an advertising showcase, loses a large part of its attractiveness with the visible affixing of health warnings. Associated with a set of coherent and scientifically proven measures, health messages participate in an effort to denormalize smoking within society, the keystone of an effective anti-smoking policy in the long term. ©Generation Without Tobacco

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[1] Health warnings on cigarette packages, International report, Canadian Cancer Society, September 2018 https://www.cancer.ca/~/media/cancer.ca/CW/for%20media/Media%20releases/2018/CCS-international-warnings-report-2018---French---2-MB.pdf?la=en [2] Howard Jacqueline, CNN, “Cigarette packs and ads to include graphic warnings starting next year, FDA says, 03/17/2020 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/17/health/cigarette-packs-graphic-health-warnings-fda-bn/index.html