GOTHENBURG, Sweden—Soon Sweden could start having graphic warning pictures on cigarette packages, joining 30 other nations across the world in this method of attempting to curb smoking.
“We are looking into it and are counting on it to be ready next year,” said Margaretha Haglund, an expert in tobacco politics at the Swedish National Institute of Public Health, to Swedish public television station SVT.
Swedish Minister of Health and Social Affairs Maria Larsson has been positive toward the use of the pictures, according to the Swedish Dagens Nyheter newspaper. The Swedish National Institute of Public Health is now selecting the graphic pictures, after which the Swedish government will make the final decision on whether the warning pictures will be implemented.
The European Union has made 42 graphic pictures available to its member states to use for warning against smoking. The pictures include black lungs, a heart operation and throat cancer.
The tobacco industry has been highly critical of the pictures.
A person who smokes 20 cigarettes a day will meet these pictures 7,000 times per year in that moment when he or she will take and light a cigarette, says a report at the Web site of Swedish tobacco information, www.tobaksfakta.org, which is a co-operative effort of the Swedish National Institute of Public Health and two non-governmental organizations, the Cancer Society and Doctors Against Tobacco.
Canada was the first country in the world with warning pictures, starting in 2001, and has since then been followed by 30 countries. Belgium was first in Europe.
Finland is also in the process of deciding to implement the warning pictures. This could mean that Norway and Finland could become the first Nordic countries to have warning pictures. Finland is also considering banning public exposure of tobacco, which would mean that it will not be on display in shops.
Canada will have banned the exposure of cigarettes in all 10 provinces and three territories by January 2010. Newfoundland and Labrador will be the last provinces in the country to implement this ban.
England, Scotland, Wales and North Ireland started to use warning pictures on cigarette packages Oct. 1, 2008.
A new federal law in the United States is going to make it possible to start using warning pictures, but this could take up to three years to implement.
A study that was published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine (March 2007) was conducted among smokers in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Australia showed that the Canadian smokers were most conscious about the risks of smoking.
Canada had already at that time large scary pictures on cigarette packages while the United States had still only the discrete text warnings on the narrow sides of tobacco packages.
In the United States, a ban on cigarettes containing certain characterizing flavors went into effect on Sept. 22. The ban, authorized by the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, is part of a national effort by the FDA to reduce smoking in America.
