Canada’s move to add warning on single cigarettes good step but not enough: experts

Canada is poised to become the first country to require written health warnings printed on individual cigarettes. Health experts say it's a step in the right direction.

Canada’s push to add health warnings on individual cigarettes is a step in the right direction, but more measures are needed to cut tobacco use across the country, health experts say.

On Friday, the federal government announced its proposal to print warnings on individual cigarettes, cigars that have a filter, and cigarette tubes.

If implemented, Canada would be the first country in the world to introduce such a mandate.

The proposed regulations build on existing requirements to include graphic photo warnings on tobacco products’ packaging introduced in 2000.

Geoffrey Fong, professor of psychology and public health sciences at the University of Waterloo and principal investigator of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, said printing the health hazard warning on each single cigarette greatly extends the exposure to the messaging of the harmfulness of the product.

“I think that this has a significant potential to increase the effectiveness of warnings for those who are using this deadly product,” he told Global News.

In mathematical terms, the difference is considerable compared to having just the packaging labelled, he explained.

For a person who smokes a pack a day, the new measures could potentially mean 58,000 versus 7,300 times of exposure a year.