FCTC - Article 11 - Packaging and labelling of tobacco products
FCTC - Article 11 - Packaging and labelling of tobacco products (p.9/10) (pdf format) 1. Each party shall, within a period of three years after the entry into force of this Convention for that Party, adopt and implement, in accordance...
FCTC - Article 11 - Packaging and labelling of tobacco products (p.9/10) (pdf format)
1. Each party shall, within a period of three years after the entry into force of this Convention for that Party, adopt and implement, in accordance with its national law, effective measures to ensure that:
(a) tobacco products packaging and labelling do not promote a tobacco product by any means that are false, misleading, deceptive or likely to create an erroneous impression about its characteristics, health effects, hazards or emissions, including any term, descriptor, trademark, figurative or any other sign that directly or indirectly creates the false impression that a particular tobacco product is less harmful than other tobacco products. These may include terms such as "low tar", "light", "ultra-light" or "mild" and
(b) each unit packet and package of tobacco product and any outside packaging and labelling of such products also carry health warnings describing the harmful effects of tobacco use, and may include other appropriate messages. These warnings and messages:
(i) shall be approved by the competent national authority,
(ii) shall be rotating,
(iii) shall be large, clear, visible and legible,
(iv) should be 50% or more of the principal display areas but shall be no less than 30% of the principal display areas
(v) may be in the form of or include pictures or pictograms.
2. Each unit packet and package of tobacco products and any outside packaging of such products shall, in addition to the warnings specified in paragraph 1 (b) of this Article, contain information on relevant constituents and emissions of tobacco products as defined by national authorities.
3. Each Party shall require that the warnings and other textual information specified in paragraphs 1(b) and paragraph 2 of this Article will appear on each unit packet and package of tobacco products and any outside packaging and labelling of such products in its principal language or languages.
4. For the purpose of this Article, the term "outside packaging and labelling" in relation to tobacco products applies to any packaging and labelling used in the retail sale of the product.
What company would keep the same ads for 7 years?
That's why the graphic health warnings should change regularly (every six months like in Australia) and automatically, ie without having to return to the legislature or a complex regulatory process.Canada made the first step when introducing graphic health warnings but...
That's why the graphic health warnings should change regularly (every six months like in Australia) and automatically, ie without having to return to the legislature or a complex regulatory process.
Canada made the first step when introducing graphic health warnings but missed out on the good way to keep them most effective. Not raised in the article is the option that the ads could also use other types of images and messages for instance lovertising :)
Source: Can News Service
Impact of graphic anti-smoking photos burning out
OTTAWA - Graphic health warnings on cigarette packages are failing to move the majority of smokers to quit, a new government survey has found.
Over the last five years, the percentage of smokers who say the warnings are ineffective at getting them to try to kick the habit has increased, according to the newly released Health Canada poll.
More than half - 57 per cent - say they are unmoved by these graphic warnings, up five points from five years earlier. Among potential quitters - smokers who are seriously thinking of quitting - the percentage who characterize the campaign as not very effective or not at all effective in getting them to try to quit has also increased in this period, to 43 per cent from 40 per cent.
A health warning for cigarette packaging. A July 2008 government survey found these graphic warnings do little to move hardcore smokers to quit.
Only 14 per cent of smokers and 20 per cent of potential quitters said the health warnings are very effective at getting them to try to quit smoking, also down from five years ago, when 18 per cent of smokers and 25 per cent of potential quitters described the campaign in these terms.
Health Canada commissions the annual Environics poll to track the effectiveness of health warning messages on cigarette packages.
In 2001, Canada became the first country in the world to require tobacco companies to put photos of cancerous lungs, diseased hearts and mouth cancer among others on cigarette packages with text messages such as "Cigarettes Cause Lung Cancer" and "Cigarettes Cause Strokes." The photos and text must cover half of the package, both front and back.
But the campaign hasn't been updated in seven years, and the Canadian Cancer Society says these new survey results show the warnings are "becoming a bit stale," according to senior policy analyst Rob Cunningham.
"That's an indication of the importance of Health Canada refreshing the content of the messages. You're not going to see a major consumer product company leave their television ads unchanged for seven years."
The most recent poll, conducted last November, shows near universal recollection among respondents of seeing health warning messages on cigarette packages, with 93 per cent of smokers reporting having seen warnings on their main brand of cigarettes.
But the poll also found that many smokers are finding ways to avoid looking at the images of oral cancer, teeth decay and lung disease accompanied by tag lines about cancer, premature death and the harmful effects on fetuses.
About one in five smokers (22 per cent) and potential quitters (19 per cent) said they never look at the health warnings. This is up from five years ago, when 15 per cent of smokers and 11 per cent of quitters reported never looking at the warnings.
At the same time, the number of smokers looking at these warnings several times a day is down, to 22 per cent in November 2007 from 29 per cent in November 2002. The decrease is even more dramatic among potential quitters over these five years, to 24 per cent from 33 per cent.
Health Canada issued a statement Friday saying the research indicates that "awareness of specific health issues related to tobacco-related health hazards is growing."
The statement added, "Health Canada believes that the warning messages continue to be an effective and efficient way to reach smokers at a very low cost."
Long-time smoker Arminda Mota is among those who don't even notice the graphic health warnings when she pulls out her pack of cigarettes multiple times a day.
"It's worthless, period. No smoker looks at it. We don't care. That's not going to make me stop smoking or even think about it," said Mota, a Montrealer who heads the industry-funded smokers' rights group mychoice.ca.
Cunningham said Health Canada is currently working on updating the health warnings, but any changes won't take effect until 2010. He said the delay is unavoidable because any updates will require regulatory changes and a transition period for the tobacco industry.
Environics polled 1,000 smokers and 606 potential quitters. The margins of error for the two groups are plus or minus 3.1 and 4.0 points respectively, 19 times out of 20.
Egypt intoduces graphic cigarette warnings, starting August 1st
With effect from the 1st of August, cigarette packs in Egypt will feature graphic health warnings, informing smokers of the devastating health effects of smoking. Images will include: a dying man in an oxygen mask, a coughing child, a fetus...
With effect from the 1st of August, cigarette packs in Egypt will feature graphic health warnings, informing smokers of the devastating health effects of smoking. Images will include: a dying man in an oxygen mask, a coughing child, a fetus with a warning of the harm to pregnancy, or a limp cigarette, symbolizing impotence.
Source: Jackie Tumwine's blog.
Egypt is fulfilling one of her treaty obligations under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which require state parties to introduce, among other tobacco control measures, large, graphic health warnings on cigarette packs.
The photos below from Egypt's Ministry of Health show a series of four new tobacco warning labels which will appear on packets of cigarettes sold in the country.
The limp cigarette symbolizes impotence. The message in Arabic reads, "Warning, smoking damages the health and causes death. The damaging effect of smoking harms the smoker and the non-smoker. Smoking for a long period of time affects marital relations".
This tobacco warning label in Arabic reads, "Warning, smoking damages the health and causes death. The damaging effect of smoking harms the smoker and the non smoker. Smoking around pregnant women harms the fetus and causes miscarriage".
This tobacco warning label in Arabic reads, "Warning, smoking damages the health and causes death. The damaging effect of smoking harms the smoker and the non smoker. Smoking affects children - protect your children from smoking".
This tobacco warning label in Arabic reads, "Warning, smoking damages the health and causes death. The damaging effect of smoking harms the smoker and the non smoker. Smoking causes diseases of the heart and circulatory system".
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The article below from the Associated Press gives details of the new Egyptian cigarette health warnings.
Egypt uses stark warnings in anti-smoking campaign
By Paul Schemm, Associated Press
Offering a cigarette is as common as a handshake in Egypt, where the culture of smoking is so entrenched that patients and friends sometimes light up in hospital rooms.
But now, the government is finally getting serious about the health risks, launching a new campaign of stark visual warnings about tobacco's dangers.
Starting Aug. 1, cigarette labels in Egypt will be required to carry images of the effects of smoking: a dying man in an oxygen mask, a coughing child, and a limp cigarette symbolizing impotence.
It's a major step in Egypt's fledgling anti-smoking campaign and a dramatic change in a country where public discussion of smoking's health risks is nearly nonexistent.
"I would like to quit but I just can't. But when you see pictures like this, like that sick man, that has an effect — it does encourage you to stop," said Osama Sabri Mohammed, a 39-year-old civil servant, as he puffed on a cigarette outside a government building in downtown Cairo.
"This one specifically will have an effect on Egyptians, since they are really concerned about that," he said, when shown the image of the limp cigarette.
The photo of the limp cigarette comes with the warning that "long-term smoking has an effect on marital relations" — somewhat coyer than a version the European Union has recommended for its member countries, which states directly that smoking "causes impotence" and shows a discontented young married couple sitting apart in bed.
Twelve countries, including Canada, Jordan, Brazil and Thailand, require graphic photos of the effects of smoking to be printed on cigarette packs — and many have reported success in at least reminding smokers of the danger.
But the campaign faces a tough challenge among Egypt's die-hard smokers.
Egypt is one of the top 15 smoking countries in the world: Nearly 60 percent of all adult males in this country of 79 million people use tobacco in some form, compared to the United States where around 24 percent of men smoke cigarettes. An estimated 2 percent of Egyptian women smoke — though most researchers believe female smoking is greatly underreported due to social taboos against it that push female smoking into private areas.
In Egypt, ashtrays can be found everywhere from elevators to bathrooms. Passing around cigarettes or firing up a shisha, as the waterpipe is called here, is a must at every social occasion.
It's widespread even among those supposed to know better: Nearly a third of male health professionals smoke. In the hallways of the Health Ministry, "no smoking" signs are ubiquitous — as are buckets of sand filled with cigarette butts from smokers ignoring the rule.
"Egypt is an extraordinarily challenging country because it has such a culture of smoking, it's so ingrained in day-to-day living," said Gary Saffitz, the deputy director of Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Communication Programs, which is helping Egypt with the campaign.
But, he says, the government appears to have realized the depth of the public health problem "not just in human capacity and lives, but the cost in dealing with all the disease generated by it."
While anti-smoking campaigns have been in place for decades in the West, the issue has not even been on the agenda in Egypt. In the 1990s, when smoking in the developed world declined, it increased 8.6 percent in the Middle East, according to the American Cancer Society.
The first big step came in 2005, when Egypt ratified the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which lays out methods to combat tobacco use, including pictorial warning labels.
Since then, the first baby steps have been taken to ban smoking in some areas. Airports and Cairo's metro are strictly no-smoking, and a 2007 law banned smoking in government buildings — though enforcement is still an issue.
A month ago, the country's new tobacco control department was launched, though it consists of only two people in a closet-sized office with no telephones and an annual budget of just US$12,500.
For the new label requirements, authorities field-tested a variety of images.
They found that warnings linking tobacco with death were not particularly effective with Egyptians, since dying is perceived as inevitable anyway. Also, images of diseased lungs left people confused about what was being shown.
Instead, the new warnings focus on threats to health and, particularly, to family, like the effect on children and pregnant women and the risk of impotence. Numerous studies, including a 2003 report by Tulane University researchers, have found that smoking can be a major cause of erectile disfunction, in part because it constricts veins and arteries, reducing blood flow.
"We need something to give the smokers a shock that they are in great danger," said Dr. Mohammed Mehrez, head of the tobacco control department.
There are many myths to overcome.
Some Egyptians are convinced only light cigarettes lead to impotence. Earlier this year, the state-owned manufacturer Eastern Tobacco Company voluntarily put pictures of diseased lungs on some packs — but smokers just figured those packs were the ones that were harmful and switched to others, which some shopowners promptly started selling at a higher price.
And, as everywhere in the world, many smokers who realize it is bad still show scant interest in quitting.
"I've been smoking since I was eight years old — I used to pick up cigarette butts from the gutter and smoke them," laughed Hussein Hassan Mahmoud, a wizened 60-year-old butcher with one eye clouded from cataracts, sitting outside his Cairo shop enjoying a cigarette.
Mahmoud goes through three or four packs of the local Cleopatra cigarettes a day, at about US 50 cents a pack, and he scoffed when shown the new warnings.
"People will just tear the labels off," he said.
2:42 PM | |
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