Canada will require health warnings to be printed directly on individual cigarettes and cigars, a “world first” in the fight against smoking, the government announced on Wednesday.
The messages will be phased in from 1 August and will include phrases such as “Poison in every puff”, “Tobacco smoke harms children” and “Cigarettes cause cancer”.
About 48,000 Canadians still die each year from smoking, Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett said in a statement, stressing that Canada was “the first country in the world” to introduce such a measure.
A similar bill was debated in the UK parliament in 2022, but failed.
The measure will make health warnings virtually unavoidable and will provide a stark reminder of the health consequences of smoking, alongside updated images displayed on the packaging, the minister said.
In justifying the measure, the Canadian government said it found that some young people, who are particularly sensitive to the risk of tobacco addiction, take up smoking after receiving a single cigarette rather than a pack with health warnings.
In 2000, Canada was the first country to order pictorial warnings on cigarette packets, including gruesome depictions of diseased hearts and lungs, to raise awareness of the health risks associated with smoking.
Since then, smoking has been on a downward trend. Ottawa aims to further reduce the number of smokers in the country to 5% of the population, or around 2 million people, by 2035, from around 13% at present.
According to official data, almost half of the country’s health costs are linked to the use of psychoactive substances.
