Essay on Cigarette Packaging system

Cigarette nearly kills half of all chain smokers and plain packaging of tobacco was first introduced in December 2012 in Australia. Plain packaging is hailed by public health campaigners as a significant victory of public health. The tobacco industry, not surprisingly, is fighting back with lawsuits. The packaging of Cigarette, as for scientific evidence, points to various issues with such shock tactics of marketing when it is about helping people to quit the habit of smoking. In fact, the evidence is there that police might face intended results that could outweigh its significance (Anker, 2016).

A Power of Warning Messaging for of Cigarette Packaging system

The warning messages on cigarette packaging concern the health effect of tobacco. These warning messages are implemented to increase awareness among the public regarding the harmful effects of smoking. Warning messages, in general, used in different countries emphasize on a similar message. The framework convention on tobacco control by the World Health Organization was adopted in 2003 and it requires to promote awareness against tobacco through warning messages. It was summarized in the 2009 view that the knowledge of customer increases through health warning messages on cigarette packaging that contribute to changing behaviour and attitude of tobacco consumers. Such warning messages on cigarette packaging have subject to criticism as well that these warning labels do not affect the smoking habits and there is need to explore other potential and unique ways to change smoking behaviour (World Health Organization, 2015).

Graphic Warnings on Cigarette Packaging system

It has been evidently shown that graphical warnings on cigarette packaging effectively communicate health risks of smoking to wider non-smokers as well as smokers including illiterate people and kids. Hence, the positive impact of graphical warnings on cigarette packaging is strengthened with plain packaging. Implementing graphic warnings on cigarette packaging is key to protect people from people; the tobacco industry, however, has been consistently fighting for this implementation and they prefer either vague text warning or no warning at all over graphical or plain cigarette packaging. Evidence-based cigarette packaging is necessary to communicate the smoking health risks. As consumers, smokers have right to know the health effects of smoking and the researches have shown that in the countries where large graphical warnings on cigarette packaging are implemented, people are more aware of negative health impacts of smoking. Furthermore, the evidence has shown that graphical warnings on cigarette packaging and increase knowledge of health risks of tobacco encourage positive trends like acceptance of tobacco control measure by people or quitting smoking completely (Huang, 2016).

Conclusion on Cigarette Packaging system

In a nutshell, graphical or plain cigarette packaging is more effective than the warning messages in terms of increased awareness on negative health impacts of smoking and tobacco. Warning messages, in general, used in different countries emphasize on a similar message. Such warning messages on cigarette packaging have subject to criticism as well that these warning labels do not affect the smoking habits. The positive impact of graphical warnings on cigarette packaging is strengthened with plain packaging. Evidence-based cigarette packaging is necessary to communicate the smoking health risks. The evidence has shown that graphical warning on cigarette packaging and increases knowledge of health risks of tobacco.

References of Cigarette Packaging system

Anker, T. B., 2016. Why tobacco ‘plain packaging’ could have dangerous unintended consequences. [Online]
Available at: https://theconversation.com/why-tobacco-plain-packaging-could-have-dangerous-unintended-consequences-59611

Huang, E., 2016. Large pictorial pack warnings and plain packaging work. [Online]
Available at: https://tobaccoplaybook.net/en/002-packaging.html

World Health Organization, 2015. WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2015: Raising Taxes on Tobacco. s.l. World Health Organization.