For the first time in Russia the warning messages on cigarette packs will be made compulsory starting with Saturday to raise more awareness about smoking-related illnesses among inhabitants especially among smokers.
However, tobacco companies will be allowed to sell their previously-manufactured cigarette packages which contain no health warnings only till the next year, the officials declared.
So, under the new anti-smoking regulations, which are part of Russia’s anti-smoking campaign, tobacco companies are forced to thrash messages for to inform people of the bad effects of cigarettes smoking.
The main warning message “Smoking Kills” must be printed in a black frame covering no less than 30 percent of the front and an extra message should cover no less than 50 percent of the back.
The new legislation will add also 12 additional warning statements like “Smoking causes lung cancer”, “Smoking causes heart attacks and strokes”, “Smoking can lead to male impotency” and another one “Keep kids away from cigarette smoke”.
Tobacco Industries will be permitted to modify the messages once a year and “display” them with imagines and graphics.
The new anti-smoking regulation also requires cigarette makers to show on the packages the amount of nicotine level and tar contained in the cigs. Since June 22, the amount of carbon monoxide in cigarettes smoke from a filtered cigarette must not exaggerate 10 milligrams.
The World Health Organization (WHO) showed that more than approximately 60 percent of Russian men are smokers, and almost 400,000 Russians die from smoking-related diseases yearly.
So, this main problem can be solved only by convincing inhabitants to quit smoking if they want to live more and if they want to protect the health of their children.