Commission Warns Companies About Cigarette Labeling

Source from:  tobaccojournal.com 25 Sep 2008 09/26/2008

New Zealand's Commerce Commission has issued warnings to three major tobacco companies that the use of the terms 'light' and 'mild' risked breaching the Fair Trading Act. The Commerce Commission, acting on complaints, has been investigating whether the use of the descriptors 'light' and 'mild' on cigarettes could be potentially misleading under the Fair Trading Act. "Our concern with descriptors such as 'light' and 'mild' is that consumers may believe they are exposing themselves to less harm if they smoke these cigarettes, as compared to regular strength cigarettes," says Commerce Commission Director of Fair Trading Adrian Sparrow. "Whilst technical machine testing of these products might show them to have a lower level of toxicants, our investigations suggest that the impact of human behaviour results in there being little difference between the intake of toxicants from these products and their regular strength counterparts." During the investigation, British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco gave the Commission assurances that they would remove the descriptors from their packaging. Philip Morris has undertaken to do the same by 17 October 2008. Enditem