Canada will be the first nation to start printing warnings directly onto individual cigarettes in a bid to deter young people from starting smoking and encourage others to quit.
The warnings, which will be in English and French, will include phrases like “Cigarettes cause cancer” and “Poison in every puff”.
The new regulations go into effect on Tuesday.
Starting next year, Canadians will begin to see the new warning labels.
By July 2024 manufacturers will have to ensure the warnings are on all king-size cigarettes sold, and by April 2025 all regular-size cigarettes and little cigars with tipping paper and tubes must include the warnings.
The phrases will appear by the filter, including warnings about harming children, damaging organs and causing impotence and leukaemia.
In May, Health Canada said the new regulations “will make it virtually impossible to avoid health warnings” on tobacco products.
A second set of six phrases is expected to be printed on cigarettes in 2026.
The move is part of Canada’s effort to reduce tobacco use to less than 5% by 2035 and follows a 75-day public consultation period that was launched last year.
Canada has required the printing of warning labels on cigarette packages since 1989 and in 2000 the country adopted pictorial warning requirements for tobacco product packages.
Health Canada said it plans to expand on warnings by printing additional warning labels inside the packages themselves, and introducing a new external warning messages.
Dr Robert Schwartz, of the University of Toronto, told BBC News it was good news that Canada was “moving forward with this innovation”.
“Health warnings on individual cigarettes will likely push some people who smoke to make a quit attempt and may prevent some young people from starting to smoke,” he said.
He also pointed to New Zealand, which has introduced very low nicotine cigarettes, as a leader in limiting the use of tobacco.
Mr Schwartz added: “These are the kinds of measures needed if we are serious about decreasing tobacco use.”
Tobacco use continues to kill 48,000 Canadians each year.
“Tobacco use continues to be one of Canada’s most significant public health problems, and is the country’s leading preventable cause of disease and premature death in Canada,” Public Services Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has previously said.
The Canadian Cancer Society, Canada’s Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Lung Association have all praised the warning labels, saying they hope the measures will deter people, especially young people, from taking up smoking in the first place.
Cigarette smoking is widely regarded as a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke.
In Canada, the rate of smokers aged 15 years or older is around 10%, according to a national 2021 Tobacco and Nicotine survey but electronic cigarette use has been on the rise.
I bet it would be a lot more effective if they just printed a penis down the length of every cigarette.
Wouldn’t it make smoking more cool?
My friend from Canada comes to visit and is a smoker. She brings packs with her and the entire pack is covered in warnings and pictures. I asked her if it bothers her and and she said, “I don’t even notice them anymore.” I highly doubt putting a warning on each cigarette is going to do anything.
People who have lung cancer continue to smoke in the hospital. Alcoholics continue to drink, even after massive accidents.
People addicted to things don’t care.
“Poison in every Puff”
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
Joking aside, I’m fairly ambivalent about this as a smoker. I hope it helps people avoid smoking but not sure how effective these warnings are.
Former smoker. The specific medical warnings are good imo. “Poison in every puff” is a little too goofy and my inner teenager reaction is just “hell yeah” hahaha. Which is funny, but also counterproductive.
Long time ago my brand was Death cigarettes. The pack had a skull on it and a portion of the price of packet went to cancer research. I knew that smoking was bad idea but it was an excellent drug delivery system.
Though if it just means it costs the cigarette companies a bit more to produce each cigarette and makes it harder for them to divert inventory for one market to another if their predictions turn out not so good, that’s still a win.
Though, now I’m suddenly wondering why cigarette company profits aren’t taxed at like 90%.
I quit smoking almost a decade ago. But I feel like if I was still smoking this would only make me want to smoke more. Watching the warnings slowly burn away would be relaxing.
Could someone smart enlighten me on why cigarettes continue to be allowed to be sold if we know that it causes cancer and costs the healthcare system millions (billions?) each year? I know we can’t suddenly stop production overnight but can’t they gradually putting a stricter ban on it until it’s almost impossible to get? Is it smokers being too addicted? Is it tobacco lobby being too strong?
Because people will still smoke even if you ban cigarettes. Legalizing cigarettes actually provides a way for governments to regulate production and enforce safety standards, while getting a cut of the profits by sales tax.
Exactly, if you made them illegal you would open up a huge black market while making the products likely more dangerous. This would put further strain on our healthcare system, while decrease funding as the government would no longer be getting taxes on the sale of cigarettes.
Remember prohibition?
The lessons of the 20th century have mostly been forgotten. Re-learning them is going to be very expensive - not just in money, but in lives.
How so?
gestures vaguely at the United States
Optionally we can do (worldwide) what Australia does: an additional 65% tax.
This tax is increased year on year too
Yeah because fuck poor people with addictions, am I right fellas? /s
2 things (one of which you mentioned)
- Lobbying
- Makes money for the government (taxes)
Lobbying in the tabacco industry is crazy strong, they have so much money that, much alike to the oil industry, they will keep selling their products no matter the risks.
There’s also the fact that the government makes money off the sales and imports of tobacco products. The revenue is strong enough to counter the money spent on healthcare, etc.
If they ignored the warning on the pack, they’re gonna ignore these too.
Agreed, it’s a very stupid idea. They should print ‘Known by the state of California to cause cancer’ just to drive home how incredibly stupid this idea is.
Is the paint cancerous?
Yes that’s the point, if you get paint cancer first, you won’t ever get cancer from the sigarets themselves.
Is this really necessary? Aren’t most smokers, y’know, aware of the dangers of smoking by now? At some point I wonder if the warnings will get annoying enough that people will start to actively defy them out of spite instead of just passively ignoring them.
“Health warnings on individual cigarettes will likely push some people who smoke to make a quit attempt and may prevent some young people from starting to smoke,” he said.
The constant barrage of negativity and warnings may help keep kids from picking it up.
Kids aren’t picking it up though. They’re going to vapes. Which are probably just as bad.
As I understand it, vapes are in theory not as bad, however the significant increase nicotine consumption far offsets any of that.
Kind of depends on the vape, the chemicals in the cartridges and how hot they get.
Generally speaking though, inhaling chemical aerosols into your lungs is bad. Most of the “it’s better” research is brought to you by the vaping industry itself . “No, no, it’s totally harmless. Honest!”
I think a lot of it comes down to the subjective experience of ex smokers. It feels better. Not coughing black, no struggling to breathe jogging, etc.
Could we find out later that they’re just as likely to cause an early death? Who knows, but it still feels better than the alternative.
Exactly. Inhaling anything other than oxygen is bad for your lungs. Vapes are definitely bad. They might not be bad in the same exact way cigarettes are, but that doesn’t make them any better.
Even pure oxygen is generally not recommended- it’s you know… oxidizing….
But like yeah. Sorry for being a pedant
Just don’t. Seriously, what’s the purpose of being like that?
The lack of any real controls on what goes into vape fluid is a concern. Also, breathing glycol into your lungs can’t be great for them. Studies seem to vary on that, but breathing anything but air isn’t good, just like drinking anything but water isn’t great (I’m big hypocrite on that one though) On the whole probably still not as bad as cigarettes.
Oh I’m a big hypocrite in the smoking regard. I smoke weed fairly regularly, and will occasionally vape for the first bit of a T break.
It’s all at best not great for you
Not as bad is still bad.
Like saying “instead of drinking a glass of poison, I just drink half of a glass. Its better for my health.”
Where did I claim otherwise
You didn’t. I didn’t say you did.
I just built on your comment.
I apologise for the misunderstanding.
Many Kids are still picking up smoking cigarettes though.
usually by way of vaping. teens only really start with cigarettes or other tobacco if their parents smoke, these days. And for the record, you can get addicted to nicotine off 2nd hand smoke if your around it enough.
Vaping is the “cool” thing to do now.
Lots of smokers ive known usually wear the dangers as a badge of pride in their knowing
Most smokers are not thrilled about being alive in the first place.
Or is that just me?
nailed it
They have ONE idea to stop people smoking and by god they’re gonna use it
It’s similar to commercials and ads. Everyone thinks they are not affected by such things, but pretty much everyone is affected by them on a subconscious level. Why would companies such as coca cola spend millions of dollars on advertisements? After all, virtually everyone already knows what coca cola is.
SMOKING WORDS CAUSES CANCER
I was wondering about that. Is there a sleeve or are they printed right on the cigarette?
“The phrases will appear by the filter, including warnings about harming children, damaging […]”
Looks like it might be on the filter part though the wording is kinda ambiguous
Let’s add a warning label to every bottle of alcohol
They are actually considering adding warning labels to booze in Canada like they have on cigarette packages. I’m unsure if they’ll go full gory photos of damaged organs and dying people but they are thinking of putting a label of some sort on it.
This is stupid. Every one knows that cigarettes are bad for you. Maybe fix the housing market, and opiate crisis before going after something like smoking, which plenty of productive people do.
There is no cost to the government to mandate that cigarettes have this printed on each one.
Fixing other things will cost the government a lot of money.
Smoking costs all of us shit loads of money every year. I know it feels easy to shit on this initiative, but whatever, smoking needs to be eradicated.
Until people are willing to write waivers that they will fully pay their personal healthcare costs we have to keep disincentivising smoking.
Just pay for it with tobacco taxes.
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How about we don’t criminalize a plant anymore and build a better world where no one feels like they need dangerous habits for a dopamine hit?
Nah crazy talk. Banning plants works so well. No one uses cannabis or cocaine or opioids anymore.
NZ already did this, existing smokers above age 16 or something are grandfathered in, and then each year the minimum age increases until no one can buy smokes.
Tobacco is one of those products that causes a lot of harm to people and those around them for little benefit. Other drugs can either be enjoyed alone, or easily be consumed in a different form that doesn’t involve smoking and / or harming others.
This is actually an amazing idea
Or adults can make their own choices.
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Not in a single payer model.
I think the next step should be that, while you’re smoking the smoke writes “Smoking Cause Cancer” in Morse code.
To buy cigs, you are required to sign up for “Smoking Facts” text messages, that are triggered each time the pack is opened, and have to reply with “Yes, I want to die”.
“Never knows best”.
What about e-cigs and vape? They’re the new hip and most young people are catering to that now some even rationalizing that they do it because it doesn’t have nicotine and is therefore not dangerous.
If the ink causes cancer…
Double cancer?
Literally.
It will cancel out the cancer from smoking. /s