Graphic warnings on cigarette packs DO help smokers quit

According to the latest research the best way to discourage people from smoking is to plaster big, graphic warnings on cigarette packets, and the bigger they are the better.

The new study which is based on four surveys conducted in Australia, Canada, the United States and Britain over a period of three years from 2002 to 2005, has found that people do heed such warnings and they do encourage people to quit.

The international study included many researchers and surveyed nearly 15,000 adult smokers, and found that U.S. labels, which are the smallest and least detailed, are also the least effective.

According to the study the bigger the warnings the more effective the message was and American cigarette warning labels might be more effective if they were big and graphic.

Cigarette packs in the United States carry four warnings written on the side of cigarette packages, whereas Canadian, Australian, and British cigarette warning labels are much bigger, include more health warnings, and appear on the front and back of the packages.

Canadian warnings cover half of the front and back of cigarette packages and include 16 warnings in print as well as pictures, such as "Tobacco use can make you impotent."

The Australian label includes six written warnings with pictures and covers a quarter of the front and all of the back of cigarette packages.

The U.K. cigarette label contains a total of 16 written warnings on the front and back of the package using an enlarged text.

In the surveys the researchers asked smokers in the four countries studied how often they noticed the warning labels on cigarettes and whether the labels made them try to quit smoking or think about smoking's health risks.

U.S. smokers were the least likely to report noticing or reacting to the labels, Canadian smokers reported the greatest impact from the labels and Australia ranked second, followed by the U.K.

The study suggests that U.S. warning labels are in need of a facelift to become more effective, and as the researchers point out current health warnings on U.S. cigarette packages provide even less health information than many other, more benign consumer goods.

According to the study other countries use even more graphic warning labels; Thai labels include a picture of a man smoking, with skulls floating in the background, while Brazilian labels shows an unhappy couple in bed, with a warning about impotence from smoking.