November 12, 2010
By Brian Bujdos
Although the U.S. was the first country to place warning labels on cigarettes, it fell behind other countries when it came to enforcing more stringent warnings on the products – until now that is.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week unveiled 36 cigarette warning labels – 9 of which will appear on all U.S. cigarette packaging by October 2012. The new labels will cover half of the entire surface area of cartons and packs of cigarettes, and all cigarette advertising must include the labels as 20 percent of their surface area.
Cigarette manufacturer R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has sued the FDA regarding its increased tobacco regulation. The introduction of the new warning labels is part of the lawsuit, the company said. However, a law passed in 2009 gave the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products. The law, which is the first of its kind, does not permit the FDA to ban tobacco products.
Many people have criticized the ads as being too graphic, but others have said the ads are actually pretty tame as compared to some that exist in the more than 30 other countries that now also require labels.
One new U.S. ad shows a man exhaling smoke through a hole in his neck, one shows a man who appears to be suffering a heart attack, one shows a mother blowing smoke on her baby and another shows the lower portion of a corpse, complete with a toe tag.
Tobacco manufacturers and their lobbies, of course, say that the new ads do nothing to further convey the harms of smoking and only serve to stigmatize smokers. The anti-smoking community says it stands behind scientific research that shows the benefits of the ads.
David Hammond, a researcher at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that about one-third of smokers are more motivated to quit, and about the same number of former smokers are reminded why they quit in the first place. The FDA consulted with Hammond on the new ads due to the effect a similar campaign had in Canada.
The FDA has also hired a company to obtain input from 18,000 survey participants in order to determine which ads will be most effective, both for preventing smoking and to keep former smokers from lighting up again. All survey information and public input will be gathered through January, and then the process will begin to trim the 36 new ads down to 9 by June 22. The tobacco companies will then have four months to incorporate the ads onto their products, or they will not be permitted to legally sell them in the U.S.
Funding for the creation and implementation of the new ads was provided in part by contributions from the Obama administration’s $250 million tobacco control plan.
About 21 percent of the nation’s adults, or more than 46 million people, and about 20 percent of high school students, or 3.4 million teenagers, are smokers. Smoking is the single-largest cause of preventable deaths in the U.S. The habit accounts for about 440,000 annual deaths and is responsible for $96 billion in healthcare costs each year.
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