ACSH friend Bill Godshall of Smokefree Pennsylvania supplies some needed background to yesterday’s Dispatchitem about graphic labels on cigarette packs. Commenting on the Department of Health and Human Services’ proposal to mandate scary images on cigarette packs, Dr. Whelan said in yesterday’s Dispatch that “to my knowledge there is no evidence that these images deter addicted smokers.”
But Godshall says:
Per your comments on color graphic warning labels, cigarette consumption and smoking rates declined in many of the countries that first required color graphic warnings (e.g. Canada, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand), which prompted me to urge Sen. Mike Enzi [R-Wyo.] to offer an amendment to Sen. Kennedy's FSPTCA [Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act] bill in 2007 to require them in the US ...
Godshall writes that the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and the American Lung Association “vigorously opposed Enzi's amendment, calling it a poison pill and a Trojan horse that was intended to kill the legislation. But Kennedy and the rest of the Senate HELP Committee approved the amendment unanimously.”