UK Health Expert: Cigarettes Should Contain Individual Health Warnings

Chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Deborah Arnott, supports the idea of having individual health warnings on cigarettes.

“Cigarettes are widely known as cancer sticks – why not put “smoking causes cancer” on every cigarette to remind smokers every time they pull out a fag. Graphic warnings should be printed on every single cigarette,” said Arnott.

Smokers become desensitized to plain packaging.

A study by Aaron Drovandi from James Cook University in Queensland, surveyed over 2,000 smokers and non-smokers in order to determine the effectivity of current smoking cessation approaches. He found that although a significant number of Australians have quit smoking in recent decades, current strategies such as plain cigarette packaging, are less effective for smokers.

Drovandi’s findings indicated that most smokers had become desensitized to warnings on plain tobacco packaging, saying that individual warnings may be more effective than graphic pictures on packets.