In an effort to convince cigarette smokers to quit — and to stop potential smokers from picking up a pack — the FDA’s Dept. of Health and Human Services has proposed a series of larger, more graphic warnings for cigarette packs and advertising.
The three images above (NOTE: That is the FDA’s crude Photoshop work, not ours… for once) are just a sampling of the 36 ideas being considered by the agency. The range of warnings go from the general “Cigarettes are addictive” to the blunt “Smoking can kill you.”
After the final warning labels are selected in June, after which tobacco companies will have 15 months to start including them on the front and back of all packaging.
Additionally, tobacco companies must dedicated at least 20% of each ad to one of the new warnings.
If you want to check out all the possible warnings, here’s a PDF.
Proposed Cigarette Product Warning Labels [FDA.gov]
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You’re kidding me, right? That is just a mock-up site created by the Cracked.com people for one of their user-submitted photoshop comedy pieces, right? That surely can’t be intended to be serious by serious people, seriously.
How about if Congress just cut off tobacco farmers from their taxpayer-funded subsidies? That will remove profit from growing tobacco, causing tobacco prices to increase, causing cigarette prices to increase, resulting in higher tax revenue. Unless the higher cigarette prices causes people to stop smoking, in which case tax revenue will hold steady or fall. Problem solved.
I mean, honestly, have these things been shown to have any effect?
Smokers KNOW how those things can screw them up. There have been PSAs for decades. At this point, really, anything that happens is their own damned fault.
I think this it does a pretty sold job of making it look a hell of a lot less cool. Face it, leaning against the wall and pulling out a box with a giant picture of a cancer victim on it makes you seem far less cool, doesn’t it?
No, it will be even cooler. Smokers will be brave risk-takers, like cliff-divers and BASE jumpers.
No, you just put your smokes in a super-cool metal case
Instead of spending money on designing these packages and whatever else they are going to spend money on, they should put it towards researching ways to make it easier to quit. I have tried for 10 years to no success, and even with having COPD at age 28, I still cannot quit. And the one thing that has helped me quit for 3 months (E-cigarettes), the FDA is doing everything they can to shut down, so I say fuck the FDA and their government hippy loving asses.
“Tobacco smoke can harm your children”
Good reason for them to move out before age 40
Many people have commented that the warnings are targeted at teens because mature adults know the dangers and either choose to ignore them or can’t quit. The problem is that these ads feature 50 somethings or older in most cases, therefore young kids will continue to think that they won’t be harmed by cigarettes. As I approach “middle age” I think back to when my parents turned 40, and how old I thought they were (I was 17-18). Now that I am nearing 40, I don’t think it is that old, and I realize how out of touch I was with the real world. If the goal really is to reach out to teens this ad won’t work. They need to change the imagery to show younger people who have had negative impacts because of smoking. What I think would be better would be a phone number or text number or website that smokers can go to to learn how to quit and what support is available to them
No, you are old, elderly even
Apparently these morons at the FDA like to ignore the factual obvious. In countries where they have graphic warnings like these, the smoking population INCREASED, especially among new younger smokers.
So, with that fact in mind it is obvious this move is about money, someone is getting paid to support and implement this. And, it’s being done to INCREASE the smoking population.
Canada has been doing this for years. I’m a former smoker and I still have a pack of Ultra Lights with a picture of a biopsied lung in a closet somewhere.
If nothing else, they may turn into collectors items.
“Hey! I’ll trade you a crying second hand smoke victim for a cancer patient?”
Too soon?
http://www.vancouversun.com/Canadian+could+become+image+smoke+campaign/3807812/story.html
WOO this is awesome! I always get bored while smoking and now I’ll have something to stare at!
…But in all seriousness this is retarded, and a complete waste of money and time. I’m not saying it isn’t good to keep everyone informed about the dangers of smoking, but what was wrong with the old warning? Making it bigger and more flashy isn’t going to do anything. Like many other comments stated, if that’s the mindset, then why not put equally disturbing pictures on ALL potentially hurtful products? Total. Waste. Of. Money.
Also, a question for anyone who knows: Is it REALLY the tobacco that might cause cancer, or all the other nasty little chemicals they mix in there with it? Because, if it isn’t the tobacco, and rather all the other junk, why not just take all that other stuff out? Sure, the shelf life might be shorter, but then I think a price increase would actually be justified instead of them just increases [death] tax on it…
Kids see pictures of venereal diseases and still have the sex. As an ex-smoker I knew the risks of smoking and still chose to smoke. You want to know why? I enjoy(ed) it. Smoking was a social, stress relieving, and enjoyable activity for me. You could put a picture of gnomes humping my grandma on my menthols and I still would have smoked the shit out of them. I stopped smoking for my kids, but not because someone scared me with bigger warnings or obnoxious teenagers; it was my time and I knew it.
I don’t appreciate people telling me what to eat, if I should smoke after, or what day of the week and what time I should be able to buy a beer. I am an almost 30 year old woman that makes very responsible decisions, but I firmly believe it is my fucking right to make some bad ones if I want to.
I do not see the reason everyone wants to push there views on people that smoke. I smoke but do not drink and think that drinking is bad but do not push my views on people that do drink.
Coming from a family with a alcoholics grandmother, mom , dad and brother my view drinking is much worse than smoking. For those that complain about the costs of tobacco look at the costs of alcohol as a whole. From drinking and driving, fights, liver kidney failure, stds, broken homes, accidents and police responding to calls involving alcohol .
If you do not smoke, drink, eat fatty foods, vote for someone that dose or do any of the other hundreds of things thats bad or dangerous for you and still want to complain I say good for you. For the rest that want to control someones else’s freedom of choice look out.
Before i do get flamed i do agree that smoking is bad for your health but so are lots of other things should we put labels big labels on everything? Salt? Sodas? Candy? Fast food? Cars? Where dose the madness end.
They already do this in Singapore, with much more graphic photos than the examples above:
http://www.smoke-free.ca/warnings/Singapore-warnings.htm
They already do this in Singapore.
I’m waiting for all junk food/fast food to start having pictures of horribly obese naked people on them, or pictures of a heart cut open with the “fat” plaque dripping out of it’s arteries. Just saying obesity is going to overtake tobacco soon for annual deaths and when it does I figure the anti-tobacco nannies will choose that as their next moral crusade. Probably won’t happen as quickly since the majority >50% of the US is overweight so it’s not as easy to get the bills passed when it affects the majority of the US and those crafting the laws.
Waiter to customer: I’m sorry, I can’t serve you that hot chocolate sunday as you are obese and I could be held criminally liable for aiding you in your decision to slowly kill yourself. Anyways haven’t you read the reports about obesity? Your killing yourself and your children by living this way!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States
Why not just make the entire box warnings with a small brand seal in the corner.
Hey! While we’re at it, let’s make the paper that the cigarettes use warnings as well!
You know for a little extra we could probably invent cigarettes that send out smoke signals while burning that cigarettes are bad for you!
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Haha didn’t know it wouldn’t cut my Yea.
Now only if I had an edit button…
As a smoker I am for this, though the FDA’s proposed pictures are a little tame are cartoony.
Thailand puts extremely graphic pictures on their cigarette packages and it’s awesome. When I was there for a few weeks I collected the whole set! Too bad the cigarettes all tasted like dust.
They’re going to warn us that cigarettes can cause cancer? What next? Gasoline can cause explosions?
I smoke and I know the dangers, full stop. Now if the government really believes that smoking is hazardous to my health and that of others, they can grab the bull by the horns and make tobacco products illegal, the same as marijuana, cocaine and a bunch of other drugs. If the government doesn’t think that tobacco is all that hazardous, then the government ought to shut the hell up. And if the government really believes smoking is hazardous, but doesn’t want to give up the tax revenues from tobacco, then they are doing their best to fulfill my expectations of a crowd of pigs slurping at the trough.
I think I saw this idea in the movie Thank You For Smoking:
Senator Lothridge: Mr. Naylor is not hear to testify on the goings on of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. We’re hear to examine the possibility of a warning label on cigarettes. Now, Mr. Naylor, I have to ask you out of formality, do you believe that smoking cigarettes, over time, can lead to lung cancer and lead to other respiratory conditions such as emphysema.
Nick Naylor: Yes. In fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who really believes that cigarettes are not potentially harmful. I mean – show of hands – Who out here thinks that cigarettes aren’t dangerous?
Senator Dupree: Mr. Naylor, there’s no need for theatrics.
Nick Naylor: I’m sorry. I just don’t see the point in a warning label for something people already know.
Senator Dupree: The warning symbol is a reminder, a reminder of the dangers of smoking cigarettes.
Nick Naylor: Well, if we want to remind people of danger why don’t we slap a skull and crossbones on all Boeing airplanes, Senator Lothridge. And all Fords, Senator Dupree.
Senator Ortolan Finistirre: That is ridiculous. The death toll from airline and automobile accidents doesn’t even skim the surface cigarettes. They don’t even compare.
Nick Naylor: Oh, this from a Senator who calls Vermont home.
Senator Ortolan Finistirre: I don’t follow you, Mr. Naylor.
Nick Naylor: Well, the real demonstrated #1 killer in America is cholesterol. And here comes Senator Finistirre whose fine state is, I regret to say, clogging the nation’s arteries with Vermont Cheddar Cheese. If we want to talk numbers, how about the millions of people dying of heart attacks? Perhaps Vermont Cheddar should come with a skull and crossbones.
Senator Ortolan Finistirre: That is lu – . The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese!
Senator Lothridge: Mr. Naylor, we are here to discuss cigarettes – not planes, not cars – cigarettes. Now as we discussed earlier these warning labels are not for those who know but rather for those who don’t know. What about the children?
Nick Naylor: Gentlemen, it’s called education. It doesn’t come off the side of a cigarette carton. it comes from our teachers, and more importantly our parents. It is the job of every parent to warn their children of all the dangers of the world, including cigarettes, so that one day when they get older they can choose for themselves. I look at my son who was kind enough to come with me today, and I can’t help but think that I am responsible for his growth and his development. And I’m proud of that.
Senator Ortolan Finistirre: Well, having said that, would you condone him smoking?
Nick Naylor: Well, of course not. He’s not 18. That would be illegal.
Senator Ortolan Finistirre: Yes, I’ve heard you deliver that line on 20/20, but enough dancing. What are you going to do when he turns 18? C’mon, Mr. Naylor. On his 18th birthday will you share a cigarette with him? Will you spend a lovely afternoon – like one of your ludicrous cigarette advertisements? You seem to have to have a lot to say about how we should raise our children. What of your own? What are you going to do when he turns 18?
Nick Naylor: If he really wants a cigarette. I’ll buy him his first pack.
This sounds awesome! I want to START smoking just so I can collect the pack backs!
“Hey, Do you have Old Man with Iron Lung?”
“No, But I have Child playing with blocks and coughing”
“SWEET! I’ll Trade you Mother driving and smoking with windows up!
Coming soon, Graphic warnings in Limited Edition Holofoil Variants!
Well … the campaigns against teen smoking clearly aren’t working. The is from observation … but this is not going to help. As others have said I could easily see collecting the packages. If you you want to stop teen smoking – you need to start teen caning …. seriously. Most older folks who smoke that I know have at least tried to stop.
I’m pissed that after decades of slow progress on reducing smoking, that now there are Hookah bars popping up and people look at that as a hip cultural experience. It’s still smoking and it’s still gross.
To quote Denis Leary:
“There’s a guy- I don’t know if you’ve heard about this guy, he’s been on the news a lot lately. There’s a guy- he’s English, I don’t think we should hold that against him, but apparently this is just his life’s dream because he is going from country to country. He has a senate hearing in this country coming up in a couple of weeks.
And this is what he wants to do. He wants to make the warnings on the packs bigger. Yeah! He wants the whole front of the pack to be the warning. Like the problem is we just haven’t noticed yet. Right? Like he’s going to get his way and all of the sudden smokers around the world are going to be going, “Yeah, Bill, I’ve got some cigarettes.. HOLY SHIT! These things are bad for you! Shit, I thought they were good for you! I thought they had Vitamin C in them and stuff!”
You fucking dolt! Doesn’t matter how big the warnings are. You could have cigarettes that were called warnings. You could have cigarettes that came in a black pack, with a skull and a cross bone on the front, called “Tumors!” and smokers would be lined up around the block going, “I can’t wait to get my hands on these fucking things! I bet you get a tumor as soon as you light up! Numm Numm Numm Numm Numm” Doesn’t matter how big the warnings are or how much they cost. Keep raising the prices, we’ll break into your houses to get the fucking cigarettes, ok!? They’re a drug, we’re addicted, ok!? Numm Numm Numm Numm Numm *wheeze*”
And I’m sick and tired of SOME health risks being demonized, while others get off scott-free. I don’t smoke anymore, but geeze, people act like it’s the worst thing ever. Any non-nutritive drug has the same “not good for anything but killing” logic to it, like booze, a lot of medicines. And even the ‘nutritive’ ones are stretching it… don’t judge my smoking (or, for the last 7 years, lack thereof), and I won’t judge your weight and snickers eating, or your diet soda drinking (gives rats cancer! just drink water!) or your HCFS drinking or your trans fats or your excessive sun exposure.
…annnnnnnnnnnnd I just saw that I apparently missed that someone had already quoted the Denis Leary bit. Sorry for the repost!
Welcome to 2000, FDA! Canada’s been forcing graphic warnings on our cigarette packs since then. I’m sure there have been many previous posters (haven’t gone through the 205 comments posted here before this one), but I’m glad you’re coming on board with warnings smokers will handily ignore and the tobacco lobby will vehemiously oppose and buy a few Republican senators’ votes to keep those warnings off. Thanks for playing!