An image of anti-smoking crusader Barb Tarbox, who documented her battle with cancer, will be among those featured on cigarette packages in Canada starting in June. U.S. officials announced last year they were considering using Tarbox's image as well. Photograph by: Handout, AFP
OTTAWA — Cigarette packs are about to get a whole lot more jarring in Canada.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, accompanied by the widower and daughter of anti-smoking crusader Barb Tarbox, visited a school in Ottawa on Tuesday to announce that tobacco companies will have to start selling revamped cigarette packages by next June.
Twelve new images will cover 75 per cent of the outside panel of cigarette packages and eight new health messages will appear on the inside in full colour in an attempt to turn off smokers.
A picture of a dying Barb Tarbox, a lifelong smoker who died of lung cancer in 2003 at age 42, will be among the new images on the outside panels.
"This is one story of many in Canada, and the family agreed to help and work with us to get their message to Canadians, and I thank them for their courage and their leadership in trying to reach out to young people," the health minister said Tuesday.
Speaking directly to the Grade 8 students on hand for the announcement, Pat Tarbox said the picture of his late wife is still shocking for their family to see and "it freaks out a lot people." That's the point, he said.
"We're hoping her image will have an impact on a lot of youth and that's really what Barb wanted to do," said Tarbox, whose late wife documented her illness and spoke to schools across the country in the months before her death as part of an anti-smoking campaign.
"It's a stark reality of what cancer looks like. If you think smoking is cool, 20 years down the road, you don't look so cool when you're lying in a hospital bed deteriorating," added Tarbox.
Their daughter, Mackenzie, 18, who was nine years old when her mother died and is now a first-year university student, said the image of her mother represents "just what it means to have cancer. I just think that you guys should just never start and if you have, stop. Could you imagine telling your nine-year old daughter that you might not be there for Christmas?' "
Currently, health warnings cover 50 per cent of the outside panel of cigarette packages, but Health Canada research has consistently shown that smokers have dulled to the old graphics, first introduced in 2001.
As part of the new rules, tobacco companies will also have to include four toxic-emission messages for the side panel, along with a national toll-free quit line.
Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst for the Canadian Cancer Society, was on hand to laud the government for showing "global leadership."
He added: "This is a blockbuster in terms of public health because it costs the government virtually nothing to do but it does have an impact in the short and long term."
Initially, the government planned to have the old packs out of the marketplace by next March, but a delay in publishing the final regulations means the industry has another three months to transition.
Aglukkaq committed to the new regulations last December after she signalled in the fall that the file was on hold so the federal government could focus on combating contraband cigarettes.
A month before Aglukkaq made this commitment, Tarbox lamented what he saw as foot-dragging on the part of the federal government after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it was considering using Barb's image on cigarette packages sold in the U.S.
Since then, the U.S. plan to cover the top half, front and back, of cigarette packaging with graphic warnings has been put on hold by a lawsuit filed by tobacco companies. The companies allege the mandated health warnings violate their free speech, given that cigarettes are a legal product but the warnings urge prospective customers not to buy them.
sschmidt@postmedia.com
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