On Tuesday, Canada will be the first country to require printed cancer warnings on each and every cigarette. Since 2001, the country has required the warnings on the outsides of the cigarette packages with increasing visibility, but now, users will see “Smoking causes cancer” every time they light up.
The law will be phased in and won’t take effect for one year. Starting with king-sized cigarettes, the law will then apply to regular cigarettes, and eventually rolling papers. The warnings don’t appear to apply to marijuana cigarettes. Marijuana is legal in Canada for all uses, both recreational and medicinal.
The new law is designed to stop young people from taking up the tobacco habit. Lawmakers said that many youth don’t buy packs of cigarettes, but rather get them individually from friends and family, so they don’t see the packaging on the boxes and packs.
According to the Canadian government, in 2020, the prevalence of current cigarette smoking among youth aged 15 to 19 was 3% (63,000), a decrease from 5% in 2019. The prevalence of daily and occasional smoking among youth was unreportable due to small sample size.
The Tobacco Products Appearance, Packaging and Labelling Regulations that were adopted under the authority of the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act of 2023, amended the previous Tobacco Products Regulations (Plain and Standardized Appearance) to standardize the appearance, packaging, and labeling of all tobacco products under stiffer regulation. It repealed the previous Tobacco Products Information Regulations of 2000 and the the Tobacco Products Labelling Regulations (Cigarettes and Little Cigars) of 2011.
The new law mandates:
- Health warnings on packages covering at least 75% of the primary display area of most tobacco product packages
- Health warnings on cigarettes, little cigars, rolling paper, and tubes; health warnings extending from one end of the product on cigarettes.
- Health information messages on the inside of cigarettes, little cigars, and cigarette tobacco packages
- Toxicity information on the exterior surface of all packages
View all the current warning labels required on cigarette packaging in Canada, not including what will be now printed on the cigarettes themselves.
