According to the terms of a new federal regulation that was announced on Friday by the country’s minister of mental health and addictions, a warning message will be printed on each and every individual cigarette that is sold in Canada. The purpose of this regulation is to reduce smoking, particularly among young people.
The individual warning label, which is rumoured to be the first of its kind anywhere in the world, is intended to serve as a supplement to the warning messages that are already printed on cigarette boxes in Canada, a nation whose smoking rates have significantly decreased over the course of the past few decades.
According to Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, young people who share cigarettes and do not read the package labels would be able to see the health warning on individual cigarettes. This is something that has been proposed by the Canadian government.
According to statistics from Statistics Canada, the national census office, which was collected in 2020, the number of people who smoke in Canada is decreasing. The data revealed a decrease of 3 percent between the years 2015 and 2019. According to Statistics Canada, the number of people who smoked in the nation dropped to 10 percent in the year 2020. According to research conducted at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, in the year 1965, almost half of all people living in Canada were smokers.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, more than 20 billion cigarettes are sold in Canada each year, and the majority of the country’s 4.7 million smokers consume cigarettes on a daily basis. Although vaping is increasingly common among younger Canadians, figures from StatsCan reveal that just four percent of the country’s smokers were under the age of 19 as of the year 2022.
According to a statement made by a spokeswoman for the Canadian unit of cigarette giant Philip Morris International, the business welcomes the new law that has been implemented in Canada. “We have a same objective with Health Canada – removing cigarettes and making Canada smoke-free by 2035 or sooner,” said Jeff Gaulin, the spokesperson for Rothmans, Benson & Hedges. “Our aim is to eliminate cigarettes and make Canada smoke-free.”
The national organisation responsible for public health, Health Canada, has proposed that the cautionary phrase “Poison in every puff” be placed on the portion of the cigarette paper that surrounds the filter.
The researchers were sceptical that the warnings would have much of an impact on the behaviour of the subjects.
According to Robert Schwartz, the executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit and a professor at the University of Toronto, a better way to reduce youth smoking would be to decrease the availability of cigarettes, which are commonly sold at corner stores and gas stations in Canada, and raise taxes on them. This would be a more effective way to combat the problem.
According to Dr. Christopher Carlsten, a professor at the University of British Columbia and the director of the respiratory medicine section, he is unsure whether or not the scientific evidence supporting the inclusion of a warning on each cigarette is “compelling.”
According to the 2020 cigarette tax scorecard that was issued by Tobacconomics, a research firm based in Chicago, Canada has among of the highest cigarette taxes in the world. This information was gathered through a survey that was conducted by Tobacconomics. The scorecard places Australia and New Zealand in top place, respectively.
Even though the new restrictions have not yet been implemented, it is quite likely that they will get clearance from the health minister in Canada.
Under the new rules, cigarette boxes and packaging are also receiving an upgrade. The new rules mandate that more health concerns be put on the box, as well as new photographs of illnesses that are connected to smoking.