According to the country’s health agency, Canada will soon print warning labels directly on cigarettes, a first for the world. The new packaging will have warnings like “Poison in every puff” and “Cigarettes cause cancer” printed on each cigarette.
Health Canada announced that the regulation will go into effect on August 1. By 2035, the goal is to get Canada’s tobacco use down to less than 5%. Health Canada stated that the new rules “will make it virtually impossible to avoid health warnings” on tobacco products in an announcement on Wednesday.
The health organisation projects that by April 2025, Canadian retailers will only stock tobacco products with the new warning labels printed right on the cigarettes.
Individual cigarettes, little cigars, tubes, and other tobacco products will all have labels on tipping paper, according to Health Canada. Following a 75-day public consultation period that began last year, the action was taken.
Warning labels are already printed on cigarette package covers. Health Canada said it plans to expand on those by printing additional warning labels inside the packages themselves, and introducing a new external warning messages.
In a statement, Canada’s minister of mental health and addictions, Carolyn Bennett, said tobacco use kills around 48,000 Canadians each year. “We are taking action by being the first country in the world to label individual cigarettes with health warning messages,” Ms Bennett said, calling the change a “bold step”.
The Canadian Cancer Society, Canada’s Heart and Stroke Foundation, and the Canadian Lung Association applauded the move, expressing their hope that the measures will deter people, particularly youth, from taking up smoking.
Causes of smoking
Many consider cigarette smoking a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke. Canada has required the printing of warning labels on cigarette packages since 1989, though it was behind the UK, which printed warnings as early as 1971.
The US was the first nation in the world to require health warnings on cigarette packages, passing its Federal Cigarette Labelling and Advertising Act in 1965.
Labels in all three countries have evolved over the years, notably to include sometimes graphic images in addition to text to show the health consequences of smoking.
Since the US introduced warning labels, the smoking rate has significantly decreased. Some studies, however, have found that labels are not a deterrent for people who have a high nicotine dependence.
According to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 42% of US adults were smokers in the mid-1960s. In 2021, that number dropped to a historic low of 11%. However, electronic cigarette use appeared to have risen.
In Canada, the rate of smokers aged 15 years or older is around 10%, according to a national 2021 Tobacco and Nicotine survey. Like the US, the survey revealed vaping rates to be higher at around 17%.
