Canada: Individual Cigarettes to Carry Health Warnings

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Facts

  • On Wednesday, Health Canada announced the country would begin labeling every cigarette with health warnings like "Cigarettes cause cancer" and "Poison in every puff" starting Aug. 1.1
  • As part of the regulations, king-size cigarettes will be the first to feature the warnings by the end of July 2024, followed by regular-size cigarettes and little cigars with tipping paper and tubes, which must adhere to the new rules by the end of April 2025.2
  • The labels — which the government hopes will lower smoking rates from the current 12% to less than 5% by 2035 — will reportedly feature health warnings in both French and English and will appear in bold, black text at the butt of each cigarette.3
  • In a statement, Carolyn Bennett, Canada's minister of mental health and addictions, said that the "bold step" will "provide a real and startling reminder of the health consequences of smoking" at a time when tobacco use kills around 48K Canadians every year.4
  • According to a national 2021 Tobacco and Nicotine survey, nearly 10% of people aged 15 and older smoke in Canada, with the rate of vaping hovering at 17%. It introduced health warnings on cigarette packets in 1989 and became the first country to include graphic images alongside the labels in 2001.5
  • Meanwhile, Sweden is expected to become one of the world's first "smoke-free" countries — defined as less than 5% of the adult population smoking — in the coming months, with smoking rates having fallen from 15% to 5.6% in the last 15 years.6

Sources: 1BBC News, 2Canada, 3POLITICO, 4Al Jazeera, 5The Telegraph, and 6Euronews.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by CBC. The move, which follows a 75-day public consultation period, must be applauded as it will help smokers switch from conventional cigarettes to less harmful alternatives. While no risk-free tobacco products exist, e-cigarettes, for example, are 95% less harmful than traditional cigarettes. Moreover, the stringent measure will likely lower the death rate for tobacco-related diseases and reduce the country's healthcare costs.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Twitter. If the strategy is aimed at helping smokers quit the habit, declaring war on smoking is useless as there's no evidence that the labels will deter smoking for people with high nicotine dependence. Smoking is a willful, personal decision, which is why grisly photos and heinous warnings already printed on cigarette packets have failed to decrease smoking rates in Canada. The latest move only favors e-cigarette producers and aims to increase government revenue rather than combat a killer addiction.
  • Narrative C, as provided by The Globe and Mail. Instead of waging war on cigarettes, which unfortunately makes the intensely popular product more expensive and lucrative, Canada must cut smoking by slashing nicotine levels in both paper and e-cigarettes. Also, changing or limiting the available points of sale for cigarettes would further wean Canadians from addictive tobacco products and reduce smoking-related illnesses.