Difficult Times Ahead for Cigarette Companies

Cigarettes are not only harmful to smokers, but everyone around them. It’s not a new message, but it will be delivered in a new way come September as being championed by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Graphic warning labels are to cover the top 50 percent of cigarette packs, both front and back, and must also make up 20 percent of any tobacco advertisement. The nine images include blackened lungs, yellowed teeth, a man wearing an oxygen mask, another with smoke coming out of the tracheotomy hole in his neck and a dead man with an autopsy scar over his chest.

“Consider this, a pack a day smoker will see these labels more than 7,000 times a year and kids who are under the impression that smoking is cool or glamorous will be confronted by a very different reality when they are tempted to pick up a cigarette pack,” said Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the FDA.

However, four of the nation’s five top tobacco firms have filed a lawsuit against the FDA, claiming the warnings violate their right to free speech. Philip Morris is the only company not participating in the litigation.

Cigarette smoking kills an estimated 443,000 Americans each year, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and it is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States... This 'thing' is killing everywhere and a lot of youths are deceived into it due to lack of proper information, hence the new advert is a welcome development.