“Smoking will result in a slow and painful death”
How would you like to see that nice sentence in the grocery store line?
Okay fellas, how about “Smoking can cause low blood pressure and impotence.”
And just to name a couple more: “Protect your children: don’t make them breathe your smoke” and “Smoking clogs arteries and causes heart attacks and strokes.”
While I was in Europe, I noticed these labels all over cigarette and tobacco packages. As you can see in the picture, they dominate the outside of all of the packages and grab your attention a lot more than the General Surgeon’s Warning on packaging and adverstisements in the U.S.
The European Union is taking a very active role in the social responsibilty of creating awareness of the harmful effects of smoking. The labels are unavoidable, which probably doesn’t make many tobacco companies happy in the E.U., but the labels do show the E.U.’s commitment to making people aware of the hazards of tobacco. Go here to see Wikipedia’s description of various other countries’ warning labels for tobacco.