Canada is about to become the first country in the world to demand that a warning be printed on every cigarette.
The move is based on Canada’s mandate to include graphic warnings on the packaging of tobacco products, a policy that started an international trend when it was introduced two decades ago.
“We need to address the concern that these messages may have lost their novelty, and to some extent we are concerned that they may also have lost their impact,” Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett told a news conference. press release on Friday.
“Adding health warnings about individual tobacco products will help ensure that these essential messages reach people, including young people, who often access cigarettes one by one in social situations, avoiding the information printed on a package.”
A consultation period for the proposed change would begin on Saturday and the government anticipated that the changes would take effect in the second half of 2023.
While the exact message printed on cigarettes could change, Bennett said the current proposition is, “Poison every breath.”
Bennett also revealed extended warnings for cigarette packs that include a longer list of effects on smoking health, such as stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, diabetes, and peripheral vascular disease.
Canada has required photographic warnings since the turn of the millennium, but the images have not been updated in a decade.
Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, said he expected warnings printed directly on cigarettes to become popular internationally, as did the package warnings.
“This will set a global precedent,” he said, adding that no other country had implemented such regulations. He hoped the warning would make a real difference.
“It’s a warning you just can’t ignore,” Cunningham said. “It will reach all smokers, with every blow.”
The measure was also praised by Geoffrey Fong, a professor at the University of Waterloo and a senior researcher on the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project.
“This is a very potentially powerful intervention that will improve the impact of health warnings,” Fong said.
Smoking rates have been steadily declining over the years. The latest statistics from Statistics Canada, released last month, show that 10% of Canadians reported smoking regularly. The government wants to halve that rate by 2035.
StatCan noted that approximately 11% of Canadians aged 20 and over reported being current smokers, compared to only 4% of 15- to 19-year-olds.