Today, on World No Tobacco Day, the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister for Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, announced that Canada will soon require that health warnings be printed directly on individual cigarettes ─ becoming the first country in the world to take this approach.
The new Tobacco Products Appearance, Packaging and Labelling Regulations will be part of the Government of Canada's continued efforts to help adults who smoke to quit, to protect youth and non-tobacco users from nicotine addiction, and to further reduce the appeal of tobacco. Labelling the tipping paper of individual cigarettes, little cigars, tubes, and other tobacco products will make it virtually impossible to avoid health warnings altogether. In addition, the regulations will support Canada's Tobacco Strategy and its target of reaching less than 5% tobacco use by 2035.
These regulations will come into force on August 1, 2023, and will be implemented through a phased approach that will see most measures on the Canadian market within the year. Retailers will carry tobacco product packages that feature the new health-related messages by the end of April 2024. King size cigarettes will be the first to feature the individual health warnings and will be sold by retailers in Canada by the end of July 2024, followed by regular size cigarettes and little cigars with tipping paper, and tubes, by the end of April 2025.
Other measures include:
- strengthening and updating health-related messages on tobacco product packages;
- extending the requirement for health-related messaging to all tobacco product packages;
- and implementing the periodic rotation of message.
