New Graphic Warnings Coming in US

Staff Report

If you thought the current warnings on your cigarette pack simply weren’t graphic enough, or if you were about to write an outrage-filled letter to the powers that be complaining that the warnings just didn’t have that “oomph” that would allow you to enjoy your next cigarette, have no fear – your friendly neighborhood government is here to save the day.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed that cigarette packs carry graphic new health warnings including pictures and text outlining lesser-known risks of smoking like bladder cancer and diabetes as well as lung cancer.

According to FDA, the “proposed rule would establish new required cigarette health warnings for cigarette packages and advertisements. These new cigarette health warnings would consist of textual warning statements accompanied by color graphics depicting the negative health consequences of cigarette smoking. The new cigarette health warnings, once finalized, would appear prominently on cigarette packages and in cigarette advertisements, occupying the top 50% of the area of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages and at least 20% of the area at the top of cigarette advertisements.”

A representative of FDA said that the proposed changes, which also drastically increase the size of the warnings, could be the most significant to cigarette labels in more than 35 years. The proposal also applies to cigarette advertisements, and would add 13 new warnings, along with colored pictures that outline the risk of diseases associated with smoking.

Supposedly, in developing this proposed rule, FDA discovered that the members of general public hold a number of misperceptions about the possible risks caused by smoking and that new warning statements focused on lesser-known health consequences of smoking in combination with a brightly colored graphics would promote greater public understanding, especially given research has shown that the existing Surgeon General’s warnings currently used in the United States on cigarette packages have been shown to go unnoticed and become “virtually invisible to both smokers and non-smokers”.

“While most people assume the public knows all they need to understand about the harms of cigarette smoking, there’s a surprising number of lesser-known risks that both youth and adult smokers and nonsmokers may simply not be aware of,” said Ned Sharpless, FDA’s acting commissioner, in a statement.

The new draft version of the rule follows an ultimately failed 2011 bid by FDA to place colored graphic warnings on cigarette packages, which was challenged in court by tobacco companies and ultimately declined in 2012. Following a lawsuit filed by several public health groups, a judge in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued an order directing FDA to publish the proposal by August and issue a final rule by March 15, 2020. The warnings then would appear on products and in advertisements 15 months after the final rule is issued.    

On a recent call with the media, Mitch Zeller, the director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said that “we learnt a lot from what happened the last time around, and took the time through the research to get this right. If we are sued after we issue a final rule, we strongly believe this will hold up under any legal challenges.” The proposal is at least open for public feedback through October 15 and as of now, it features 13 different warnings highlighting a range of health conditions FDA says are all related to smoking, such as head and neck cancer and fatal lung disease. The proposal’s advocates are hoping that these new warnings would be impossible to miss this time around.

The new cigarette warnings will be required to appear prominently on cigarette packaging and in advertisements beginning June 18, 2021, and once implemented, the new warnings must be randomly and equally displayed and distributed on cigarette packages and rotated quarterly in cigarette advertisements.

The response from tobacco companies has been understandably muted as they evaluate the new proposal and, perhaps, formulate a plan of counterattack.  Kaelan Hollon, a spokeswoman for Reynolds American Inc, which sued FDA in 2011 to stop graphic warnings, said the company is reviewing FDA’s proposal. “We firmly support the public awareness of the harms of smoking cigarettes,” she said in a statement.But, the manner in which those messages are delivered to the public cannot run afoul of the First Amendment protections that apply to all speakers, including cigarette manufacturers.” George Parman, a spokesman for Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc, which was not part of the original litigation, stated the company “will carefully review the proposed rule and its implications to our businesses,” adding the approach “will be constructive.”

Anti-tobacco activists insist that graphic warning labels have helped reduce smoking rates in many countries, but the truth, as it usually is, is much more nuanced than that. Results from graphic warnings is a mixed bag at best. According to Bonnie Herzog, a Wells Fargo analyst, the impact of graphic warning labels on cigarette volumes is unclear as markets such as Australia and UK, where such labels have been in use for a few years, have not necessarily had a material negative impact.

Yet, the reason that both text warnings and graphic warnings, some of which have been a staple of cigarette packaging for years and even decades, have managed to produce barely a dent in the smokers’ statistics, if at all, is very simple and rather prosaic. From sticking a pin in the electric socket, to playing with fire, from climbing trees to jumping from one building to another, from trying drugs to driving your convertible like a bat out of hell, and from lighting up for the very first time to catching that last puff of that last cigarette on your deathbed, respirator be damned… it’s human nature. Throughout the centuries, the most terrible warnings and dire proclamations of certain doom have invariably failed to dissuade us from doing things we wanted to do, which, in hindsight, sometimes turned out not to be all that good for us after all. But, in lies a hopeful message too: even though this new series of warnings is just as unlikely to result in droves of smokers kicking the habit as all the previous ones, we are all human and all we need to do to quit is simply to really want to do so.