I can’t stand cigarette smoke. So it’s no skin off my nose that the United Stated Food and Drug Administration is set to make those little warnings on packs of the nicotine sticks a little more graphic.
Beginning in September 2012, big tobacco will have to stop using the white box with the infamous “Surgeon General’s Warning” text and replace it with pictures of a guy smoking from a hole in his neck and more shocking text like “Smoking will kill you.” These new warning labels will take up 50% of the front and back panels of the box and 20% of all cigarette ads.
But is this something new?
No.
About a year ago I got my hands on some Marlboro’s made in Venezuela. Seems they had shock therapy for smokers for quite some time. Their boxes feature pictures of diseased lungs, a tombstone, a mouth laden with gum cancer, a distorted fetus and more. The folks in Washington mirrored their warnings after these apparently.
Will this new kind of labeling stop people from smoking? Probably not, but it should give them something to think about.