Quit Attempts Nearly Double After Packet Warnings

Quit Attempts Nearly Double After Roll Out Of Packet Warnings

Shocking pictures of smoking's health effects appearing on Australian cigarette packets have increased requests for quitting help by 91 percent.

This dramatic increase was revealed to the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference in Auckland today by researcher Jacqueline Hickling of The Cancer Council South Australia.

"Although graphic pictorial warnings have been introduced elsewhere, no one has researched their effect upon help lines," Ms Hickling told the 370 international delegates.

“We monitored the number of calls to Quitline in Australia as the graphic images campaign was rolled out from February to July last year.  During that time, the number of calls increased by 91 percent.”

The close up images included a gangrenous foot, the contrast between a healthy lung and one with emphysema, a cancerous mouth and lips, a brain bleeding as a result of a stroke and a pair of cancerous lungs.

The images were divided into two series which were rotated so the shock value would not be reduced.

"The images were accompanied by a series of confronting television advertisements showing the little-known link between smoking and mouth cancer, and smoking and peripheral vascular disease which causes gangrene," Ms Hickling said.

Countries planning to introduce such warnings should expect similar impact and flow on benefits to quitting. Ms Hickling said.

Helen Glasgow, Executive Director of the Quit Group in New Zealand, said the Quit Group is gearing up for a busy year in 2008 when similar graphic warnings are introduced here, and that the Quitline service is being expanded to meet anticipated call increases. 

ENDS

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