Canada Considers Placing Cancer Warnings On Individual Cigarettes

As plain packaging regulations spread across the globe, the federal government of Canada goes a step further and launches a consultation process with the aim of analyzing policies in relation to tobacco warnings. Standing out during this process is the idea of placing warnings on individual cigarettes. Such warnings would read “smoking causes cancer” or similar wording.

“There is recent but limited research showing that health warnings placed directly on a product, such as cigarettes, could be effective in making the product less appealing to users,” reads a government consultation document.

Senior policy analyst for the Canadian Cancer Society, Rob Cunningham, endorses the proposal. “It’s an incredibly cost-effective way to reach every smoker every day with the health message,” he said.

Plain packaging regulations across the globe

On the other hand, plain packaging policies keep spreading around the globe. Just last Wednesday, Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) announced that it will be introducing standardised packaging for tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, beedies (thin cigarettes wrapped in a leaf), ang hoon (loose tobacco leaves) and other roll-your-own tobacco products, as part of ongoing efforts to reduce local smoking rates.

Besides Canada and Singapore, the list of countries that have either implemented or are thinking of implementing a plain tobacco packaging regulation, include Australia, Korea, Ireland, Scotland, France, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway, Chile and now Singapore.

Read Further: CTV News