This is some news from the UK(Mail Online UK). I rather like the idea and wish the United States would also do away with the lame surgeon general's warning and put something truly scary for some real convincing. Read on:
Shocking pictures of throat cancer and rotting teeth are to appear on cigarette packets from today to illustrate the health risks of smoking. Among the other images smokers will see are rotting lungs, a corpse in a morgue and a body cut open during surgery. The photos will appear on the back of packets accompanied by a written health warning.
New figures showed written warnings had motivated more than 90,000 smokers to call the NHS Smoking Helpline, the Department of Health said. However, smoking is still the biggest killer in England where it causes the premature death of more than 87,000 people each year.The photos are expected to be more effective than text, and research suggested that warnings should be changed periodically to maintain their effectiveness, the DoH said.
Canada was the first country to introduce picture warnings in 2001. Research a year later found 31 per cent of ex-smokers said the images had motivated them to quit the habit while 27 per cent said they had helped them to remain non-smokers, according to the DoH. Graphic images are now used on tobacco products sold in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Venezuela, Thailand and Uruguay.
The smokers' lobby group Forest criticized the new warnings as 'unnecessarily intrusive' and 'gratuitously offensive'. Forest director Simon Clark said: 'We support measures that educate people about the health risks of smoking, but these pictures are designed not just to educate but to shock and coerce people to give up a legal product.
Shocking pictures of throat cancer and rotting teeth are to appear on cigarette packets from today to illustrate the health risks of smoking. Among the other images smokers will see are rotting lungs, a corpse in a morgue and a body cut open during surgery. The photos will appear on the back of packets accompanied by a written health warning.New figures showed written warnings had motivated more than 90,000 smokers to call the NHS Smoking Helpline, the Department of Health said. However, smoking is still the biggest killer in England where it causes the premature death of more than 87,000 people each year.The photos are expected to be more effective than text, and research suggested that warnings should be changed periodically to maintain their effectiveness, the DoH said.
Canada was the first country to introduce picture warnings in 2001. Research a year later found 31 per cent of ex-smokers said the images had motivated them to quit the habit while 27 per cent said they had helped them to remain non-smokers, according to the DoH. Graphic images are now used on tobacco products sold in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Venezuela, Thailand and Uruguay.The smokers' lobby group Forest criticized the new warnings as 'unnecessarily intrusive' and 'gratuitously offensive'. Forest director Simon Clark said: 'We support measures that educate people about the health risks of smoking, but these pictures are designed not just to educate but to shock and coerce people to give up a legal product.
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