Europe: Cigarette Packs to Have Bigger Health Warnings

Source from:  RUVR Voice of Russia (ru)  12/27/2012

Cigarette packs sold in the European Union could have health warnings taking up 75 per cent of the packaging, under proposals being considered. The draft directive would also ban flavours like menthol and could become law in 2014. We spoke to Frederic Vincent, an EU health spokesman and asked him weren't the warnings already on packets enough?

We want to go further. We're aiming at 75% of the pack by 2015-2016.

But what difference would that make? Already, if you buy a packet of cigarettes, there's a pretty strong warning already. Is there any kind of evidence that increase of 75% would make any difference at all?

Yes, we have. There were some studies which saw that the bigger the warning, the higher the chance that people even don't start smoking. If you go to countries like Brazil, you have 100% of health warnings on both sides of the pack!

It seems that the warning couldn't get any bigger. The next step is to ban cigarettes altogether.

That's not what we have in mind. You still have 29% of the E.U. population above 15 which is smoking. The goal is not to ban tobacco, but to make sure that either you don't start or that you're fully informed of the dangers of smoking with bigger health warnings and pictures.

There is the suggestion to ban mental flavoring, because that masks the tobacco taste. But mental is a pretty established form of cigarettes. It would be unfair to ban it, wouldn't it?

Around 4%-5% of the E.U. market is for mental cigarettes. We will see what would be the impact. But in general we're not talking about all flavorings, but just strong ones. Tobacco should smell and taste like tobacco. Otherwise, the consumer is misled.

And also in line are small cigarette packets. Are they the way-out?

Yes, this is correct. We want to buy smaller packs of cigarettes. Cigarettes in E.U. will have to be 20 cigarettes +, not below.

So smoking will only be the preserve of the rich?

No, why so? We're not talking about the price of cigarettes. Indeed, raising the price is another way to tackle tobacco consumption. But that's the competence of the member states. Here we're talking about information to consumers and prevention.

In some European countries cigarettes may be a more established part of the culture than in others. And they may not like this.

The Commission has done its job. We wanted to have a proposal by the end of 2012, it's been adopted. For now we're waiting for discussions with member-states and with the European Parliament. We're pushing them to have this directive adopted as soon as possible. Enditem