June 1, 2023 – Canada shall be the primary country on the planet to require health warnings to be printed on individual cigarettes, the country’s health ministry announced Wednesday.
Messages appearing on cigarettes and cigarillos include:
- “Tobacco smoke harms children.”
- “Cigarettes cause leukemia.”
- “Poison in every move.”
- “Cigarettes cause impotence.”
The Canadian government has set a goal to cut back tobacco use from the present 13% to lower than 5% of Canadians by 2035. In the United States, 19% of adults use tobacco products, in line with the CDC.
The recent requirements shall be phased in from 1 August and the news, which is able to appear in English and French, shall be updated often.
Canada already requires that 75% of the space on the back and front of tobacco packages be reserved for pictorial health warnings and call information for people in search of help to quit smoking.
“This bold step will make health warnings virtually unavoidable and, together with updated graphic imagery on packaging, will provide a real and frightening reminder of the health consequences of smoking,” said Dr. Carolyn Bennett, Canada’s Minister of Mental Health and Addiction, in a opinion“We will continue to do whatever it takes to help more people in Canada quit smoking and help young people live healthy, tobacco-free lives.”
A tobacco policy expert said The New YorkJust that individuals who smoke a pack a day would see a minimum of 7,300 anti-smoking messages per yr with the brand new initiative.
“There are no public health messages or messages of any kind that have this kind of reach,” Geoffrey Fong, PhD, a psychology professor on the University of Waterloo, told the Just“These deterrent warnings on cigarettes have the potential to have a big impact.”