Associated Press | “Light” cigarettes are going up in smoke by the end of June, but their names and packaging are getting a colorful makeover.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says cigarette packs no longer
can feature names such as “light,” “mild,” “medium” or “low,” which
many smokers wrongly think are less harmful than “full-flavor”
cigarettes. So, cigarette makers are replacing those words with colors
such as gold, silver, blue and orange on brands that make up more than
half of the smokes sold across the country.
Anti-tobacco advocates say the colors are just as bad as the words, but tobacco companies argue they have a right to let smokers know which products are which.
Companies insist the words tell smokers about the taste, feel and blend of a cigarette, not health risks. The cigarettes usually feature different filters and milder-flavored blends.
Long years of advertising, however, emphasized measurements of lower tar and nicotine in “light” cigarettes, even though those were measured with smoking machines that don’t mirror how real smokers puff. For example, smokers will inhale more deeply or smoke more cigarettes if they’re not getting the amount of nicotine they want.
Studies show that about 90 percent of smokers and nonsmokers believe that cigarettes described as “light” or have certain colors on the packages are less harmful even though “all commercial cigarettes are equally lethal,” said David Hammond, a health behavior researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
Colors shape perceptions of risks on all products, Hammond said. For example, mayonnaise and soda usually use lighter colors on their packaging to distinguish between diet, light and regular products.
He called the removal of those few words on cigarette packs “necessary but not sufficient measures” to improve public health or reduce false perceptions.
“This is essentially mopping up the worst excesses of what the courts in the U.S. have judged to be deceptive advertising,” he said. “Tobacco companies are going to need words to distinguish their brands; it’s just a question of identifying what descriptors or words lead to false beliefs.”
He suggested the FDA take the ban even further and restrict both color and words such as “smooth” and “slim.”
Other countries are considering going even further. The Australian government proposed legislation last month that would make manufacturers sell cigarettes in plain, standard packaging, without colors and logos. More than 40 countries already have laws prohibiting terms similar to what the FDA is banning.
The idea of further packaging restrictions has the industry gasping for breath.
“Absent this information, massive confusion in the marketplace would result,” James E. Swauger, vice president of regulatory oversight for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the nation’s second-biggest cigarette company, wrote in a letter to the FDA.
Swauger warned that, if the FDA were to go as far as banning colors, consumers wouldn’t be able to distinguish between brands, and manufacturers could be limited to one type of cigarette per brand because they’d have no other way to distinguish their products.
The company, owned by Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American Inc., made slight changes to some of its brands’ packs, but for some, it was simply removing the words like “light” on already colorful packages.
The nation’s largest cigarette company, Philip Morris USA, made more than 150 packaging changes to comply. It also has included inserts in packs and displays at retail locations telling customers to “In the Future, Ask For …” the new name or color of their brand.
For example, the company is replacing its Marlboro Light cigarettes with Marlboro Gold Pack; its Marlboro Menthol Milds will be known as Marlboro Menthol Blue Pack. Philip Morris USA is owned by Altria Group Inc., based in Richmond, Va.
While customers may already see some of the new packaging in stores, calling their smokes by their old names may be a harder habit to break than smoking itself.
“I’ll ask for Newport Light 100s, and I’ll let them decipher it,” said 52-year-old Joe McKenna, a teacher and longtime smoker from Pearl River, N.Y., whose brand made by Lorillard Inc. is now known as Newport Menthol Gold. “It’s just kind of ridiculous in the sense that you know they’re harmful for you.”
“Anti-tobacco advocates say the colors are just as bad as the words,”
That’s only because the “anti-tobacco advocates” are not very intelligent people. They need everything explained to them, broken down in the shortest words and simplest phrasing in order for them to understand what is being conveyed. Fortunately, others are more intelligent than these blowhards and are capable of making their own decisions.
If these people don’t smoke, what is this pathological obsession they have with tobacco? Are these people’s lives SO empty that they have to obsess over something they have no personal interest in using? I just can’t imagine what it must be like to have such a pathetic, insignificant existance that you have to validate your “life” by interfering in other people’s lives and businesses. Frankly, I think there are some serious mental issues afoot among these people. I don’t get why people take these deluded extremist freaks seriously.
They beat up Tobacco, say that its false advertising putting the word ‘light’ on the package (which costs $10 a pack now) and yet Captain Morgan The Happy Drunk Pirate graces booze bottles and Alcohol causes MORE problems than cigarettes… Brilliant…
Everyday American, some people are control freaks and they get a rush if they succeed in getting they’re way. Even a small thing like getting a word changed on a pack of smokes puts a big smile of their face. They are not doing it for the good of anyone but themselves and their small egos and low self esteem.
Let’s see here.. ban cigarettes… then ban alcohol…then ban what??? We are all born into this world and are expected to die. I do not need nor want anyone else or the government trying to make me live longer than intended. If I want to smoke (I do), I’ll smoke..If I want to drink, I’ll drink…if I want to eat junk food, I will. As long as I am an adult, do it responsibly and do not harm other people, leave me alone.
If they get their long-term wish and everyone quits smoking legally, what will this country, its states, counties, and cities due without the tax money? Raise taxes on what they consider unhealthy food? clothing they deem inappropriate?
I’m glad I won’t be here 50 years from now as this country becomes one that is all about control instead of freedom. (I don’t plan or want to live into my 100s).
I think this anti-smoking campaign is misguided. These a drug addicts, people. Let’s soak them for all we can. They have no choice but to pay up. If we factor in all the taxes, they might actually contribute more than they take (in the form of subsidized health care and social security) because they’ll pay more in taxes and live shorter lives.
This is really funny. The smokers all come out to protest and ridicule the change of a few words on cigarette packaging.
Truth is, nonsmokers and quit smokers have no sympathy for you still addicted, and we laugh at your wheezing, whiny, soon-to-be-mechanically generated protests.
Figure out how to quit smoking instead of wasting your precious life-force puling about how the world is so unfair.
Sally Ride, you must be an ex-smoker. Never have I met a more bitter group of people in my life. How about you let the smokers do what they want and have the ability to chose if they smoke light, menthol, full flavored, or whatever they choose? Unless you’ve got a better method of distinguishing variants of an ENTIRELY LEGAL product….
Full disclosure: former smoker myself. Don’t care if you smoke, just don’t do it in my car or condo, and I fully support the smoking ban, even when I was a smoker.
I’m a smoker, former smoker, smoker, former smoker, smoker, former smoker.
Just ban the damn things if they’re so deadly and everyone hates them.
Oh wait, the government would lose all that revenue from the taxes on smokes.
And Sally Ride. Figure out how to quit whining instead of wasting your precious “life-force” puling about how the world is so unfair. Whah, the world is unfair and it has nothing to do with smoking.
“For example, smokers will inhale more deeply or smoke more cigarettes if they’re not getting the amount of nicotine they want.” Let them smoke until they die, the idiots. Freedom of choice, same as Dr Kivorkian. Pathetic.
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hmmm Cheap fix ? beer pays what .40 cents a GALLON TAX ,And Along with Other ALCOHOL costs this NATION $ 185 Biilon a year just because of its USE,And thats not a CHEAP DEADLY TO ALL FIX ? ANd there IS A LITE BEER but NOT A LITE CIGARETTE ? There Are FLAVORED DRINKS (booze) but you cant have Flavored Cigarettes? Most of the ALCOHOL USERS ARE MINORS,California Sells 14 Billion Alcoholic drinks per year which surpasses Florida at 9 Billion..Both States are In the Billions in ALCOHOL Realted DISEASE,Accidents,Murders,Rapes,CHild and SPOUSAL ABUSE,SUICIDES,COURT COSTS,and SMOKING DOES WHAT ?????????????????????????? Oh yes you guys are on the right Path….Just Like IRAQ had weapons of mass destruction………RIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
DOUBLE STANDARD….Usa
Either ban them entirely, or let them exist in the world as a vice. Like many other vices, bad habits and things people “should know better than”
Seat belt, helmet,cigarettes, alcohol, candy bars, chips, unsafe sex, etc etc.. Warn the public, ban public use, and leave the adults to make their own choices.
-Ken
(former smoker)