Cigarette Pack Graphic Warning Labels – The Food and Drug Administration has recently announced that they will launch a shock campaign in order to attempt to dissuade people from smoking. The federal government will now place pictures of corpses, people with cancer, and lungs that have been damaged and diseased by smoking on the cigarette packs in an attempt to shock purchasers by the graphic images that are the result of smoking excessively.
The “shock labels” are a new visual campaign that is being launched by the FDA in order to attempt to curb the 443,000 deaths that occur every year from the harmful effects of smoking. This is one of the first things that the FDA has done, after the new law that was passed in June 2009 allowing the FDA to regulate tobacco and how it is marketed to the public. Although the FDA is allowed to ban certain products, as well as limit the nicotine content in others, they are not allowed to ban tobacco or nicotine outright.
The FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, made a statement about the new advertising, saying, “Today, FDA takes a crucial step toward reducing the tremendous toll of illness and death caused by tobacco use…”