The Ministry of Health and Welfare changes the warning pictures and text on cigarettes from next year
- Yejoon Ko
- Jul 25, 2024
- 2 min read
The Ministry of Health and Welfare will change the warning pictures and text on cigarette packs starting later this year.
On December 22, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) announced a revision to the 'Warning Pictures and text on Cigarette Packages' to disclose the warning pictures and text that will be applied from now on.
The new warning pictures and texts will be applied from December 23rd of this year.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said, "The new health warnings on cigarette packages were selected by comprehensively considering visibility, meaning conveyance, etc. so that people can clearly recognize the health harms caused by smoking."
For cigarettes, the illustrations were organized around lesions of various diseases and the texts were converted to sentences
For example, the description was changed from "lung cancer" to "the pathway to lung cancer.
The Ministry of Health also added new topics on eye disease and peripheral vascular disease, and removed topics of pregnancy smoking and premature death.
E-cigarettes were also expanded to include two illustrations for both e-liquids and cigarettes, while the text remained the same.
Health warnings on cigarette packs are intended to encourage smokers to quit smoking and prevent nonsmokers from smoking by displaying the health hazards of smoking in pictures or text on cigarette packs.
In Korea, it has been in effect since December 23, 2016, and warning pictures and text have been notified every two years.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the warning pictures and texts for cigarette packs were developed by comprehensively considering domestic and international research results and case analyses, public sample surveys, and health warning effectiveness.
Also they were finalized after four rounds of deliberation by the Tobacco Control Policy Expert Committee, administrative preview, and deliberation and report by the National Health Promotion Policy Review Committee.
"Changing the pictures and text of health warnings on cigarette packs is a necessary measure to prevent familiarity and raise awareness of smoking," said Dr. Background Tak, Director of Health Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
"We hope that the new cigarette pack health warning messages, which will take effect on December 23, will raise awareness throughout society that all cigarettes are harmful to health and that smoking cessation is necessary."
image by https://www.seoul.co.kr/news/society/health-medical/2024/06/20/20240620500066?wlog_tag3=naver
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