Graphic warning labels help some smokers butt out
Study shows a ‘dramatic shift’ from initial backlash against these messages
When Australia’s Parliament in 2011 became the first legislature in the world to mandate plain packaging and graphic warning labels for cigarettes, the action was intended to reduce the appeal of smoking by making brands virtually indistinguishable from one another and to highlight the negative health effects of tobacco.
Toward the end of 2012, the new olivegreen packs with large images of the ravages of mouth cancer and gangrene hit the shelves.
Unsurprisingly, smokers hated them. Initial support for the measure among smokers was a paltry 28 per cent, and it was more likely to come from people who expressed a strong desire to quit smoking.
But a new study in the journal Tobacco Control found a dramatic shift in opinion. Now, 49 per cent of smokers support the new packaging — as gruesome as it is — compared with about 35 per cent who oppose them. And more surprisingly, smokers were more likely to switch from opposing the packaging to supporting it if they wanted to quit smoking.
Those who oppose the labelling were more likely to be heavy smokers and people who underestimated the risks of smoking. Support, on the other hand, was associated with quitting activity.
Meanwhile, the new packaging appears to have coincided with a slew of positive developments in Australia related to smoking cessation:
Shortly after the new law was implemented, calls to a help line for those looking to quit smoking spiked by nearly 80 per cent.
Tobacco industry warnings about the potential for increases in purchases of illicit, unbranded tobacco have proved overblown: The proportion of smokers making such purchases is actually decreasing, according to a study conducted last month by researchers at Melbourne’s Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer.
And while some have pointed to upticks in cigarette sales as evidence that the legislation hasn’t worked, last year’s increase was a mere 0.3 per cent.
At the same time, there was a much more substantial decrease in the number of people smoking. That number fell by three per cent last year, dropping the smoking rate in Australia to well below 15 per cent.
Tobacco use, one of the largest causes of preventable death, can lead to heart disease, cancer, stroke and various lung diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Canada, the Tobacco Products Labelling Regulations (Cigarettes and Little Cigars) — or TPLR-CLC — are a key part of the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy. They came into effect in 2011 and set down the requirements for health-related labels that must be placed on cigarette and little cigar packages.
Key features of the TPLR-CLC include graphic health warning messages with images that cover 75 per cent of the front and back of packages, as well as health information messages.