As of Aug. 1, Canada will see new images on cigarette packages showing the health effects of smoking. New in the rotation are warnings about colon cancer, mouth cancer, and a baby surrounded by second-hand smoke.
These often-disturbing pictures have been required on Canadian cigarette packages for more than 25 years. Rob Cunningham from the Canadian Cancer Society says they’re part of the reason smoking has declined.
“In 2001, when pictures were first required, smoking prevalence in Canada was in the high 20s. We’re now down to 11 per cent of the population,” says Cunningham.
Some experts say similar types of warnings could be just as effective on alcohol packaging.
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Ian Culbert from the Canadian Public Health Association says customers should be aware that alcohol, like tobacco, is classified as a group 1 carcinogen.
“Anything more than two standard drinks per week increases dramatically the potential for developing one of eight different cancers,” says Culbert.
He pointed to a study done in the Yukon, which added labels to bottles showing a health warning and the number of standard drinks in the container.
“People notice them, they learn from them, they reported reducing their drinking,” says Culbert. “In fact, sales of products carrying these enhanced labels declined by 6.6 per cent during the study.”
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A bill currently before the senate proposes adding a text warning to all alcoholic drink packaging. Cunningham supports that bill, and hopes it could be expanded upon in the future.
“It may be that you would start with a text only message for alcohol, which was a historical experience for cigarettes in Canada before moving to pictures,” he says.
Thanks to the huge taxes on legal cigarettes in Canada, we now have an incredibly robust black market for cigarettes. Packs are sold for $5 nation-wide, (versus $20-25 legal). Black market cigarettes are sold with no warning labels and zero quality/health controls on most reserves across Canada. This means that these new labels don’t reach an audience.
Alcohol has never been linked to cancer. That is obviously silly.
Who cares what Cunningham says. He obviously does not understand science. – Cuthburt is totally wrong, putting disinformation on bottles does not reduce consumption. Same with the cigarette warnings. It only increased the cost to produce, thus increased the cost o the consumer with no benefit.
From their website: “CPHA’s office is located on the ancestral, unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg. They have been the guardians of this land for millennia and CPHA is grateful for the example their stewardship provides. CPHA is committed to working with all First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and their governments in realizing meaningful truth and reconciliation.”
The treaty clearly states: ” The Indigenous signatories were required to “cede, release, surrender and yield up…their rights, titles and privileges” to lands and resources within the limits of the treaty” – so their whole concept is a lie.
That’s lost revenue for the government. In China they encourage smoking because it pays for the military
Are they going to print their stupid warnings on a Big Mac? A can of Coke?