| World
No Tobacco Day 2009
“Tobacco Health
Warnings” is the theme of the World No-Tobacco Day 2009.
Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death. More
than 1.2 million people die every year in South-East Asia Region due to
tobacco use. The wide-spread use of tobacco products in the Region has
resulted from unrestricted use of marketing tools by the tobacco industry,
the addictive nature of nicotine and the lack of knowledge about the
harmful effects of tobacco products among tobacco users and non-users in
the form of second-hand tobacco smoke. The lack of regulation of the tools
of a product that kills half of its users has exposed the population to the
misinformation of the tobacco industry about the suitability of their
products.
The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)
in its Article 11 mandates that countries should enact effective measures
to ensure appropriate health warnings on tobacco products packages. It also
says that these health warnings should be rotating, large, clear, visible, legible and include pictures or pictograms and occupy at
least 50% or more and no less than 30% of the principal display areas. The
third session of the Conference of the Parties (COP), held in Durban, South
Africa in November 2008 also adopted
guidelines for implementation of Article 11 which provide detailed
information for countries to effectively implement their obligations in
relation to Packaging and Labelling of Tobacco
Products. In addition, the MPOWER Policy Package promotes effective tobacco
health warnings as an intervention under its one of the six policies -
“Warn about the dangers of tobacco”.
Comprehensive health warnings about the dangers of
tobacco use play a vital role in changing its image, especially among
adolescents and young adults. Text and pictorial health warnings are useful
to communicate the health risks of tobacco use, provoke more thought about
the health risks of tobacco use and have a greater emotional response and
generate increased motivation and intention to quit. They are particularly
effective in communicating health effects to comparative low literate
populations, children and young people.
Call for action
PLACING PICTURE
WARNINGS ON ALL TOBACCO PRODUCTS IS AN APPROPRIATE AND HIGHLY
COST-EFFECTIVE WAY TO WARN CONSUMERS ABOUT THE RISKS OF TOBACCO AND TO
REDUCE TOBACCO CONSUMPTION
Call to
policy-makers
 Promote
your country's accession to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control, whose Article 11 guidelines lay out the elements of effective
tobacco health warnings.
Use
the MPOWER package — specifically, the "W", which stands for
"Warn about the dangers of tobacco" — to counter the tobacco
epidemic and to help countries meet their commitments under the WHO
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Require
by law that all tobacco products display large picture warnings about the
harm caused by tobacco and its many other negative consequences.
Build
on the experiences of other countries to craft the most effective warnings
and implement them for the greatest possible impact.
Base
your decisions on impartial scientific evidence, not on the claims of the
tobacco industry. Tobacco companies oppose strong health warnings,
particularly those with pictures. The arguments they use against health
warnings are false and should not be relied upon.
Call to civil
society and nongovernmental organizations
Advocate for picture-based warnings on all
tobacco products.
Campaign for and help to develop and
implement laws that require picture-based warnings on tobacco products.
Act as a watchdog to monitor
tobacco-industry packaging strategies and compliance with statutory
warnings.
Evaluate and share information about the
effectiveness of picture warnings.
Call to the
public
Demand your right to know the truth — the
whole truth — about the dangers of tobacco use and exposure to second-hand
tobacco smoke.
Let everyone know that you support picture
warnings.
TFI Homepage
|
