Categories
· Business (Tobacco)
· Teen Smoking/Youth
· Tobacco Control
· Smokefree Policies
· Labels/Lights
· Unions
non-USA, by Country
· Egypt
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Jump to full article: Daily Star Egypt (eg), 2008-08-18
Intro: Instead of deterring smokers, the new set of warning pictures printed on cigarette packs are driving up the sales of metal cigarette boxes, Ibrahim El Embaby, head of the Tobacco Industry Division of the Industries Union, told local press.
According to the new tobacco law, which was approved by the People’s Assembly (PA) last June, a detailed health warning has to cover 50 percent of the pack on both sides. In addition to warning labels, cigarette packs now feature pictures explaining the side effects of smoking: a dying man in an oxygen mask, and a limp cigarette in reference to impotence, among others.
In addition, all forms of tobacco advertising are prohibited, and a 10 percent increase is added to the price of cigarettes. . . .
numbers show that the law is ineffective.
“For the manufacturers, pictures and warning labels on packs are nothing but a routine procedure and will not make their consumer quit smoking because it’s the ingredients of the cigarettes, like nicotine, which are addictive,” said Mahmoud Aoshb, a economics expert at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
“The Ministry of Health has to step in with intensive awareness campaigns in order to get Egyptians to quit smoking,” he added.
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