|
|
<strong>China: CCA Calls For Printing of Health Warning Pictures on Cigarette Packets</strong> Source from: All-China Women's Federation (cn) 04/17/2014  Qiu Baochang, head of the legal team of the China Consumer Association (CCA), on behalf of the CCA called for the relative departments to order tobacco enterprises to print health warning pictures on the packaging of tobacco products, in order to make sure that tobacco consumers in China have the right knowledge about the health effects of smoking, reported by Beijing News, on April 15, 2014.
It is an international practice to print graphic warnings on cigarette packets. The well-known domestic tobacco brands, such as the Chunghwa and Zhongnanhai, which are sold abroad and in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions, have all carried images showing black lung, rotten teeth and other health warnings on the packaging of tobacco products; while in China, the same products contain only one inconspicuous line of text on the outside of their packages warning 'Smoking is harmful to health'. China signed and promised to execute the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) nine years ago. Article 11 of the FCTC says, "Each unit packet and package of tobacco products and any outside packaging and labeling of such products should carry health warnings describing the harmful effects of tobacco use... such warnings should account for 50 percent or more of the principal display areas... these warnings may be in the form of or include pictures or pictograms." But, so far, China's tobacco enterprises and relative departments have given the reason "it is hard to accept by the standards of traditional Chinese culture" in order to refuse to print graphic warnings on cigarette packets. This behavior has infringed on hundreds of millions of tobacco consumers' rights to know the hazards about smoking. Related Updates |
