Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Singapore to put gruesome pictures on cigarette packs
Agence France-Presse
Singapore, June 15
All cigarette packs sold in Singapore will soon carry gruesome messages including images of a cancerous lung and a sliced brain oozing blood to scare smokers into quitting, health officials said on Tuesday.
The campaign, starting on August 1, was triggered by the continuing popularity of smoking, which is blamed for seven deaths per day in a city-state with a local population of only 3.4 million.
More women and younger people of both genders are taking up the habit, prompting the government to intensify its anti-tobacco drive and force smokers to literally stare death in the face on each cigarette pack.
At present, only anti-smoking slogans like "smoking causes heart disease" and "smoking kills" are printed on packs.
Samples of the six mandatory pictures that will appear on a rotated basis on cigarette packs from August, all in vivid color, were published on Tuesday by the Straits Times newspaper.
The graphics have been sent to tobacco companies with strict guidelines on how they must be printed "clearly and conspicuously" and occupy at least 50 percent of the total surface area of the package.
One picture shows a hospitalised man on life support with the slogan "smoking can cause a slow painful death," while another depicts an infant breathing through a tube with the message "tobacco smoke can kill babies."
One picture is of a badly diseased mouth, and another shows a mother playing with two children while the father blows smoke behind them in the same room to illustrate how "smoking harms your family."
Smoking-related diseases like cancer, heart disease and stroke are the top killers in Singapore. Medical care and productivity problems linked to tobacco are estimated to cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Richard Png, executive director of the Tobacco Association representing the cigarette companies, told AFP that the industry has no choice but to comply.
"Whether it will affect sales is difficult to say, we've had no experience. In Singapore, this is something new," he said.
"New smokers may be put off, but regular smokers may not be unduly perturbed. Before the graphics came on we had text warnings and that hasn't affected (smokers). After a while they get used to it. I cannot gauge what sort of impact it will have."
Last month, Singapore vowed to intensify efforts to control the sale of tobacco after ratifying a World Health Organisation (WHO) convention designed to restrict cigarette sales.
Singapore already meets the mandatory requirements of the convention, including a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and enacting legislative measures to protect the public from tobacco smoke.
Smoking is banned in all air-conditioned buildings and establishments except bars.
Cigarette prices in Singapore have risen by almost 25 per cent since March last year, when the government began taxing each cigarette instead of basing the levy on the weight of the packet.
The government took the step after discovering that manufacturers had found a way to circumvent the weight-based tax by making the cigarettes lighter.
A 20-cigarette pack of one of the most popular US brands costs 9.50 Singapore dollars ($5.60), more than half of which presents duties.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.