by Danielle Childress
Imagine seeing a gruesome image of death and disease on every cigarette box in the grocery store display. That’s what the Food and Drug Administration is trying to make a reality.
Since the signing of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, the FDA has the “authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution and marketing of tobacco products to protect public health.” Because of this act, the FDA designed nine warning labels to be placed on every cigarette box of every cigarette brand sold in the United States. The warning labels include a graphic picture of the negative side effects of smoking, a corresponding written message and the “1-800-QUIT-NOW” hotline.
Even as a Democrat, something rubs me the wrong way about the federal government having that much power over what a privately owned business puts on their product or its container. Cigarette boxes already have a surgeon general’s warning, and smokers already know the consequences of their addictive habits.
The goal of the graphics is to persuade, or rather scare, smokers into quitting, which isn’t a new idea. American anti-smoking campaigns have been around for years in television and print. Countries including Canada and Australia already use labels similar to the new ones the FDA released. The current surgeon general’s warnings contain messages such as “smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and may complicate pregnancy.” Most of the newer labels contain messages like “cigarettes cause fatal lung disease.” They give the same information the surgeon general does but with a graphic image in the background to scare people out of smoking.
Although many smokers may overlook current warnings, who is to say the same thing won’t happen to the new labels after, say, 30 years? A smoker that smokes a pack a day will see the warning labels at least 7,300 times a year! If the labels become commonplace, they will no longer be surprising. They, too, will be overlooked.
The FDA warnings are outrageous and probably won’t be effective, other than in causing a clear disruption of the tobacco companies’ control over their own product. Tobacco has horrible effects on smokers, dippers and the people around them, but that’s common knowledge. Sticking a disturbing image on the front of a company’s product isn’t going to make that message any clearer.
Perhaps the FDA should set more anti-smoking policies such as bans in certain government-owned-and-regulated public accommodations, and keep the changes out of corporate America.
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