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Cigarette Packs Go Graphic as FDA Gets Tobacco Oversight  

Cigarette makers concern over packaging makes sense. As restrictions on conventional tobacco marketing have increased, the packs have become more and more valuable unfettered advertising space. Tobacco companies increasingly rely on packaging as one of their last best methods of image building. Packs are both a way to create a presence in stores and to communicate what the brand is about.

According to a study of tobacco company documents made public through litigation, the industry's own market testing results "indicate that such imagery is so strong as to influence smoker's taste ratings of the same cigarettes when packaged differently." The study found tobacco companies carried out systematic and extensive research to ensure that cigarette packaging appeals to selected target groups, including young adults and women.

The bill that passed today directly requires bold health warnings on both sides of a pack of cigarettes, a move countries like Brazil, Australia, Thailand and Singapore pioneered. In those countries stomach-turning photos of premature babies, oral cancers, tracheotomies and children on ventilators due to second hand smoke, cover the side of a pack of smokes.

Initially text-only, the US version would cover the top half of the packs, front and back. But within two years, the FDA would have to come up with similar "regulations that require color graphic labels depicting the negative health consequences of smoking."

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