FDA Orders Some New Packaging for Cigarettes
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has decided that the simple written warning on the side of pack of cigarettes is not good enough of a deterrent for people to stop smoking. The new idea that will be put into effect soon, is to have the packaging feature graphic images and warning messages of the ill effects of using tobacco products. We can expect to see all of the anti-smoking images we have come to know over the years. From the photos of the black lungs, people smoking through their tracheotomy tube, and the like.
They say that this is in attempt to deter children from becoming new smokers and to join the ranks of the graphic warning labels used in other countries. The question is whether or not this new campaign will do anything to stop smoking. People have been bombarded with the “smoking is bad for you” ad campaigns over the last couple decades.
In most schools anti-drug programs are used to teach kids about the dangers of drugs and tobacco. Any health fair features the graphic images that are slated to be worked into cigarette packages. And still new smokers emerge.
Smokers are often hit with the majority of the “Sin Tax” legislation, paying higher taxes on tobacco products because the price hike was supposed to deter them from smoking. California is heavy on the anti-smoking laws, but other parts of the country are not so strict. Even with all of the added taxes and laws, smokers still exists. For the most part, people know what they are doing. They smoke because they like it, they smoke because they are addicted, and they smoke because people tell them not to.
Take a look at the concept images for the new cigarette packaging warning labels.