Any smoker in the western world under the age of 75 can fairly be told: “You were warned.” The scientific evidence about what cigarettes do to the human body was not just unambiguous but widely known by the early 1950s. Yet a policymaking cliché holds that any adults who still smoke (20 per cent in the US) do so because they have not been educated. It was in the name of education that the US Food and Drug Administration rolled out its new cigarette packet warning labels this week. They will supplement the usual warnings about how smoking causes cancer, heart disease, etc with shocking photos. The FDA argues that 213,000 people will be moved to quit smoking after they see the new labels next year.
西方世界任何一名年齡低于75歲的煙民都會受到警告。早在20世紀50年代初，有關香煙對人體影響的科學證據就已清楚明了，廣為人知。然而，制定政策者仍迂腐地認為，凡是仍在抽煙的成年人（在美國，煙民占人口的20%），都是因為他們沒有受過相關的教育。美國食品和藥物管理局(FDA)在6月底宣布推行新的香煙包裝警示標識，其名義就是教育煙民。包裝上除了抽煙會引發癌癥、心臟病等疾病的常規警告，還將附上一些驚悚的圖片。按照FDA的說法，明年會有21.3萬人在看到標識后受到觸動，開始戒煙。