14 DAY TRIAL // Australian and New Zealand officials have recently announced that they are going to put appalling, 'horror' images on cigarette packs starting with March 1, 2007, in order to convince population to kick the bad habit. The first image which is going to appear on cigarette packs all around the country illustrates a fragile new-born baby, possibly preemie and under-size also, which is caught up in a tangle of tubes which help him stay alive...but for how long? The image is extremely expressive and comes as a warning to women who smoke before or while pregnant.
The Federal Government plans to put on cigarette packs more than one graphic image; they have thought about 7, which are going to be rotated yearly. According to officials, the other 'horror' images are going to illustrate other devastating effects of smoking upon human health, from blindness, stroke and heart attack to lung cancer, cardiovascular disease etc. Christopher Pyne, Parliamentary Secretary to the Federal Minister for Health and Ageing said: "When I launched these warnings I said that the images would be rotated annually to keep the message fresh."
Commenting on the governmental initiative, Cancer Council New South Wales (NSW) Health Strategies Director Anita Tang said: "The Government requires cigarette packs carry graphic warnings so that smokers can be better informed of the health risks, and to motivate them to quit smoking. However, this intention is being deliberately undermined by the tobacco industry by developing new pack configurations such as the new split pack."
All in all, the action of putting 'horror' graphic images on cigarette packs as a warning for smokers is thought by psychologists and experts to be very effective and succeed in persuading a great number of people to give up the bad and the most popular habit worldwide. Psychologists say the horrifying images of rotten lungs, hearts, mouths and stillborn babies are going to shock smokers, especially younger ones, into kicking the habit.
Also, Clinical Psychologist Judith Locke says that it will be very difficult for parents to explain to their infants why the image of the fragile, low-birth baby tied to tubes appears on the packs of cigarettes. Why is going to be so hard for some parents to give a simple explanation to their offsprings? Because those parents are heavy smokers. "Parents have to consider whether the message is more important than the initial shock. The parents who will have difficulty in explaining the images to their children are the ones who smoke," the psychologist explained.
Photocredit to: www.news.com.au