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GRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHS DEPICTING the negative health impacts associated with smoking are to be placed on tobacco products, the Minister for Health has announced.
James Reilly said that if the images “shocked” people into considering the impact of smoking “then the warnings will have achieved their objective”.
The move comes on the back of research and evidence from other countries which suggest that photographs are an effective way to discourage smoking and informing people about the health risks.
“We should never lose sight of the health consequences of smoking, which remains the greatest single cause of preventable illness and premature death in Ireland, killing over 5,200 people a year,” the Minister said. He added:
Every year, premature deaths caused by tobacco use in Ireland are far greater than the combined death toll from car accidents, fires, heroin, cocaine, murder and suicide.
The Minister has approved and signed the regulations (PDF) which will introduce the photographs already, but they won’t fully come into effect for some time.
All tobacco products placed on the market on or after 1 February 2013 will have to comply with the new regulations – while any tobacco products already for sale prior to 1 February 2013 can still be offered for sale until 1 February 2013.
The graphic images can be seen in this PDF from the Department of Health.
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put a photo of the last government on them that would put people right off
Why don’t they put a crashed car with a dead body hanging from the car with blood all over the bonnet on pint glasses, beer cans and all bottles of shorts as well.
More people suffer injury and death from drinking than smoking
And while we’re at it on meat why not show animals being slaughtered on packs of meat
Will I keep going on!!!!!!!!!!!!
Obese people on fast food cartons, sweat shop workers on cheap clothes……
Sharp has slaughtering farmed animals got to do with tens of thousands of smokers giving themselves needless health issues?
and about drink drivers different issues altogether.
You beat me to it Keith!! It seems the booze and farming lobby have more sway!!
Because none of those things are bleeding the healthcare system dry.
Sean C. If they used all the tax they make from cigarettes on the health service, they’d be flying in from Cuba to here. Yes. I am a smoker.
Reada in Australia $6.25 billion will be collected in tobacco tax this year and smoking will cost the community $31.5 billion, if the figures where available for Ireland the numbers would be different but the ratio bewteen them would not, only 20% of the cost of smoking is recovered through taxes.
When I lived in Spain a pack was €3.30 and they were about €8.50 over here. Same brand. That’s a lot more than 20%. Admit it. Us smokers are keeping the hospitals going. Can’t give up anyway. I’ve tried but feel as if everyone I love is dead. Spend a few days bawling and then go back on them. :(
James Reilly, you magnificent picture of health you…
Doing it here in France, but still smoking. Don’t even notice it!
What a pile of crap.
If people want to smoke then that’s their business. Price hikes and photos on packs makes no difference to smoker’s. All it will do is push smoker’s in the direction of illegal tobacco where there is no regulation and no tax paid.
Our government and the anti smoking lobby are to stupid to see that.
I’m all in favour of that, anything that would dissuade young people not to smoke.
Has this worked in Australia?
Charge €25 a pack – that should work .
Interesting point of view Eddie. I’m sure the paramilitary and organized crime cigarette smugglers would fully back you on that one!
Ah the old smoking dilemma. The state makes so much money on taxing cigarettes that no government in their right mind will ever outright ban them but they need to look like they’re doing something for something in the face of mounting cancer cases clogging up the health service. If they’re going to follow this logic, they should start putting pictures of students passed out on the side of the street in pools of vomit on slabs of Dutch Gold.
What’s wrong with Dutch Gold?
Lung cancer is far cheaper for the health service than a prolonged old age with numerous chronic ailments. It also has the added benefit of afflicting smokers on average at retirement age, just before it’s time to start cashing in a pension.
Ha ha ha the droopy cigarette for impotence.
Has the minister cited the research or is this the same sort of research that EURAD often cites, the sort that scaremongers and offers ineffectual nanny state solutions. As a smoker I don’t personally have an issue and wouldn’t mind the full removal of branding but ineffective legislation will always be ineffective no matter how well meaning it is. Personally I would rather see legislation and programmes to target kids while they are young and most likely to develop smoking as a habit.
Personally I would argue that the Goverment does not want people to stop as there would be too much of a revenue loss. If they really wanted to stop they would be much more aggressive in their targeting of teenagers who are the highest risk group in terms of potential smokers.
I am a content smoker, I have weighed the risks and have made my decision as an adult. I am also aware that nicotine is highly addictive and some what colours this perception. Kids do not often have this sort of understanding and no amount of nannying will change this.
I think that the savings that would accrue from people’s health improvement would offset some of the lost revenue and if the price were raised so would the take for the government.
And Dean, can I as an adult decide not to fund your healthcare as a result of YOUR decision?
Frank, Dean funds his own future healthcare by paying more tax than you as a non-smoker. Besides non-smokers live longer and cost the society more in the end :-)
Dean if its ineffective then why are the tobbaco companies so worried about it ?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/big-tobacco-accused-of-legal-trick-20111221-1p5qv.html
The more gruesome the better in my opinion.
Why? Whats your basis for saying that or what research have you read that says it works?
Do starving children in TV make you give money to Trocaire?
Nicotine is an addiction, they taste like shite and kill you but people still buy.
2 grandfathers died from lung cancer as a result of smoking all of their lives. Smoking kills and whatever can be done to stop people from either taking up the habit in the first place, or discouraging them from continuing to smoke should be welcomed.
And as for evidence, I direct you here: http://www.midlandsconnect.com/news/story.aspx?id=699194
Considering that the author of the report that you cited is funded by 3 anti tobacco groups I would find it hard to see him as unbiased in his findings. I could also find plenty of researchers that say that fast food and take aways are also bad for your health and therefore advocate that all packaging, business’s and websites relating to that industry should also carry pictures of obese people, diseased hearts, pictures of bowl cancer etc,
A random study. Laughable.
I know and you know and EVERYONE KNOWS it kills you. That is the biggest imaginable deterrent.
Pictures don’t do jack shit in comparison.
The opinion that we should exaggerate the damage of a drug is sadly a very common one. The truth is that when young people discover that they have been systematically lied to about the damage a drug does, they then lose the justification to believe them at all. Factual information is extremely important. I know your intentions are good, David, but it’s a terribly naive approach. There are plenty of good factual reasons not to smoke, and anyone with a “more extreme is better” approach is doing themselves nothing but disservice.
A bit like PETA.
I’m one of these dopes that say I just smoke wen I’m drinking deffo done in new year
Ha ha, I hear people saying that every year.
Quit now if your gonna quit at all, get the cold turkey part out of the way during the holidays rather than after
How does something like this take so long to come into effect its a joke
If people want to commit suicide in one of the slowest ways possible then let them. Hopefully the graphic images will put kids off starting though. Honestly, if you know that these things are poisoning you and you decide to keep smoking, then I think you definitely have some suicidal tendencies.
The slowest way to “commit suicide” (your crass choice of words) is to live as long as you can because life itself will also kill you.
Please explain how dosing yourself with poison regularly every day is not suicide.
No matter how well you treat life , you will never Leave it alive !!
Smokers who develop lung cancer should have to pay for treatment themselves.
The money the HSE spends trying to save smokers from self inflicted ill health (cancers & cardiovascular diseases) must be far less than the tax take.
Do we also extend that to drinkers of alcohol, obese people and people who don’t exercise regularly as well? People who walk on ice and slip, walk into objects because they didn’t watch where they were going, burn their hands on hot ovens because they couldn’t be bothered to put on oven gloves should also be included in this self inflicted and avoidable ill health category. Yup, that’s about at least 25% of the health budget slashed.
You’re right actually, the obese should pay for diabetes care and new livers shouldn’t be cheap for alco’s.
Dunno bout the accidental inflictions though, that’d be harsh.
Cancer is generic so smoking only aids those who would get it, get it quicker
And it CAN cause it but so does electricity and that is kept quiet
Wound why
Keith, cancer is “generic”?
Unfortunately this move won’t stop me smoking.
I think that a person recovering from a tracheotomy with that tube thing in the throat was the thing that did the trick for me. I am off ciggies for16 years
I’ve tried a few times to give up and I will keep trying as each time I manage to stay off them longer and longer. Smoking is a filthy habit and I support anything that will keep young people away from them and discourage them from picking it up.
Giving up smoking is one of the hardest things you will ever do, but it’s worth it and I wish you the best of luck!
Guys, try an electronic cigarette.. Not the crap ones you can buy in the phamacy, but a proper one.
I had tried everything, nicotine plasters, nicorette inhalers, willpower, Allen Carr’s easyway etc etc..
25 years of smoking.. Picked up a proper electronic cigarette and have not smoked since.
I showed this to my family and friends. And out of 10, 9 have stopped completely and one still smokes now and again.
They really do work. The one I use at the moment is called the Tornado tank.. Search google for it and you’ll find it no problem.
Ireland took the lead in anti smoking legislation worldwide with the smoking ban. It’s a pity we could not have taken the lead again with a more imaginative initiative.
Forcing smokers to visualise themselves with ailments is dangerous.
Smoking itself is dangerous but further endangering smokers is not the answer.
Why not GRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHS DEPICTING the negative health impacts associated with drinking on alcohol products? Its my choice to smoke because I enjoy it and no stupid picture will change that. I don’t need a Nanny state politician telling me what to do.
How about a minister for health that actually looks healthy!?
Here is an other way to look at it
The revenue made from smoking where or what other idiot would make up the difference in revenue
In some countries they drop the price so they save on pensions let’s make a new rule all in government must smoke
;-)
Actually that argument was used in an episode of “Yes Minister”.
Jim Hacker points out that smoking related diseases cause 100,000 premature deaths a year, but Sir Humphrey argues that otherwise these people would have cost the government financially even more in pensions and social security.
Jim Hacker: “Humphrey, we are talking about 100,000 deaths a year.”
Sir Humphrey: “Yes, but cigarette taxes pay for a third of the cost of the National Health Service. We are saving many more lives than we otherwise could because of those smokers who voluntary lay down their lives for their friends. Smokers are national benefactors.”
bloody mobile phone! the word sharp was meant to be “what”
Anybody that chooses to smoke is choosing to dose themselves with poison. You don’t need to abuse cigarettes for them to have ill effects. Choose a longer healthier life instead and try to give them up. Best of luck to anyone planning to quit for the New Year!
This website might help you: http://www.smokerswebsite.com
How about banning them for anyone who is not 18 from a certain date on. Then those who are currently smoking would be the last smokers.
Sounds good, but isn’t that a bit extreme? Smokers, like myself, choose to smoke. Like those who do extreme sports, there is massive risk taking, should we ban extreme sports?
@Ian. I see your point, even though it’s not a fair comparison.
My idea would allow those who currently smoke to continue to do so at their choice. It would stop new smokers from taking up the habit. They won’t miss what they’ve never experienced.
I don’t see what the problem is.
I don’t understand how people can constantly join these discussions and say, “hey everyone, why don’t we just make it illegal?”
The reason we shouldn’t is the same reason we should legalise cannabis: making it illegal requires enforcement, funds criminals, loses taxes, prevents regulation, pisses people off and doesn’t solve the problem anyway.
@Mark. Not talking about banning it, talking about phasing it out
That’s the same thing, but gradual.
Ah yeah. Whinge about graphic computer games, but put graphic images in a shop for all to see. Nicely done.
If they (the govt) had balls they’d ban smoking. In two hundred years time our descendents will be amazed at how smoking was allowed. Then they’d curse Fianna Fail as they still owe a ton of cash.
Smoker asked for a pack of cigarettes and the shop assistant hands him a pack with the health warning “smoking causes impotence” I don’t want those ones, give me a pack that says “smoking kills”.
Maybe they should put pictures of corrupt politicians and fat brown envelopes on our tax return forms…
have your say