You're reading: Smokers doubt that warning labels on cigarette packs have sense

Representatives of the Rights of Smokers public initiative think that labeling cigarette packages with warning pictures about diseases caused by smoking is peculiar to backward countries only.

“Civilized states have started to give up making such packages.
Recently a Washington court ruled that the U.S. government should stop
demanding the labeling [of packages] with such images. The key
argumentation [of the ruling] is the absence of any proofs that such
labels somehow reduce the number of smokers,” the leader of the Rights
of Smokers public initiative Yuriy Paliychuk said.

“Today mainly backward countries, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Egypt, Thailand, and Uruguay, use such ‘scary’ packages. Anti-smoking
activists are again dictating to the society the savage rules they used
to call ‘European practice’. They only put warning inscriptions on
cigarette packages in the developed European countries,” Paliychuk said.

He added he doubts about effectiveness of such images.

“The global experience shows that they [the images] have nothing in common with fight for a healthy lifestyle,” he said.

As reported, from September 16, 2012 practically all kinds of tobacco advertising will be banned in Ukraine.

From December 16, 2012 smoking in public places, at bars and
restaurants, children’s play grounds, offices, and state buildings will
be prohibited.