Canadian Health Warnings Continue to Make a Difference [08/25-3]

Excerpts from: Shock value Momentum builds to follow Canada's tough anti-smoking campaign

By JAMES R. CARROLL Courier-Journal [08/24/03]

Anti-smoking advocates say the graphic warnings — put on cigarette packs in June 2001 — have made a difference.

From 2000 to 2002, the year after Canada implemented its new warning system, the number of smokers in the country declined by 600,000, according to Health Canada, the nation's government health agency. Nearly half said in a Canadian Cancer Society survey last year that they were motivated by the startling images on the packs every time they had the urge to light up. Others who've stopped smoking cite the high cost of cigarettes — $10 Canadian a pack in some provinces — and efforts there to stop public smoking.

Now tougher warnings on U.S.-sold cigarettes are gaining momentum.

In June, the American Medical Association decided at its annual convention to push for Canadian-style cigarette labels in the United States.

Last year, cigarette consumption in Canada dropped 10 percent, from 41.9billion cigarettes to 37.6billion, according to an analysis of federal data by the Toronto-based Non-Smokers' Rights Association, a leading antismoking organization in Canada.

In British Columbia, where the 16 percent smoking rate is the lowest in Canada, tobacco sales dropped 5.9 percent.

The explicit photos depict the risks of smoking, ranging from bleeding and rotting gums and teeth to a scarred pink heart to a brain damaged by a smoking-induced stroke. One takes a humorous approach, showing a drooping cigarette with a caution: "Tobacco use can make you impotent."

In some places in Canada, entire towns are banning smoking.

Leamington, "the tomato capital of the world" on Lake Erie's northern shore, is among eight municipalities near Windsor that will ban smoking in every building, other than private homes, as of Oct. 1.

But public health advocates are looking to increase the pressure on tobacco with even more pictures on cigarette packages.

Existing warnings "don't cover all the subjects smokers and nonsmokers might be interested in," said Callard. Among those, she said, are smoking's role in premature wrinkling and its effects on athletic performance.

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