Canada is rolling out new graphic image warnings on cigarette packs
Canada is introducing 13 new graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging to discourage tobacco use. These labels, which include disturbing imagery and messages on individual cigarettes, are part of a federal strategy to reduce national smoking rates to under 5 percent by 2035.
Why it matters
Public health initiatives using visual deterrents are a key strategy in global efforts to reduce tobacco-related mortality and healthcare costs.
The images, including one showing bloody urine in a toilet bowl and another showing a cancer affected colon, are among 13 new warning labels that will be required on cigarette packages by August 1.
One image shows a baby enveloped in smoke alongside a warning about the harms of second-hand smoke. Another shows a person's tongue with cancer and says 36 per cent of people with the disease die within five years.
A Health Canada official told The Canadian Press that the new messaging will appear on packages of cigarettes, little cigars and cigarette tobacco for two years, and on all other tobacco products for three years.
The set of warnings will then rotate back to messages that have been featured since January 2024. Messages about the benefits of quitting will also be added to the extended upper flap inside cigarette packages, Karine LeBlanc told CP.
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