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Smoker's rights group FOREST says plans is “laughable”
UK newspapers and website were ablaze with news that a UK legislator plans to unveil a plan in Parliament to print “Smoking Kills” in red on each individual cigarette. Failure to do so of course would lead to fines and/or jail sentences.
The legislator, George Young introduced the so-called “private members” bill on June 14 which seeks to have the new, more stringent tobacco warning labels becomes part of existing cigarettes laws. Young is no stranger to anti-tobacco proposal; he proposed the on-cigarette warning previously when he was health minister way back during the Thatcher period.
Simon Clark, of the smoker’s rights campaign group FOREST labeled the plan “laughable”, as was reported in many news reports.
Previous research from Scotland ‘s University of Stirling in 2019 examined smokers’ perceptions of the warning ‘smoking kills’ on individual cigarettes – as opposed to the message only appearing on packs. Stirlings’s Institute for Social Marketing found that smokers felt this innovative approach had the potential to discourage smoking among young people, those starting to smoke, and non-smokers. They concluded that, “A warning on each cigarette was thought to prolong the health message, as it would be visible when a cigarette was taken from a pack, lit, left in an ashtray, and with each draw, and make avoidant behavior more difficult.
Debora Arnott of ASH (Association on Smoking and Health) agrees, saying: “Cigarettes kill smokers, not cigarette packs, so obviously [that is] where health warnings are most needed.”