The Philippine Online Chronicles

In what is considered the first major change to cigarette packaging within a quarter-century, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would require picture-based warning labels to cover half of the front, back and top of each cigarette pack.

The labels are either drawings or photographs showing the dangers of smoking. Some of the pictures include a diseased lung, a corpse and a man exhaling smoke through his neck. The labels are not considered as grim as those used in other countries but is expected to be enough to frighten young people into quitting smoking.

According to NYTimes, 20.6 percent of the adults in the US (46.6 million people) and 19.5 percent of high school students (3.4 million teenagers) are smokers. 440,000 Americans die from smoking-related problems every year while the cost to treat them has exceeded USD96 billion per year.

Current US regulations, one of the first to require health warnings, only show written warnings on the edge of the packs and at the bottom of the ads, similar to what is being done in the Philippines.

Stanton Glantz, a tobacco control expert interview by the LA Times said, “There is no question but that strong graphic warning labels work… Right now we have the weakest warning labels in the world. Now we will be right up there tied for the strongest."

The FDA is choosing between 36 different labels (which can be viewed at http://www.fda.gov/cigarettewarnings). Nine will be selected by June 22, 2011 (based on scientific surveys) and manufacturers must put them on their packs by September 22.

In other countries

Almost 40 countries now require large and graphic picture-based anti-smoking ads. Canada has had strong package warning since 2000. Brazil’s labels are even more gruesome and graphic. Those in Europe show decaying mouths and blackened teeth.

Similar legislation had been filed in the Philippine Congress but they had been shot down, reportedly because of the cigarette companies’ and the northern legislators’ (provinces where tobacco is being planted) lobbying.