New Cigarette Packaging Scares Smokers

 GOVERNMENT has introduced a new anti-smoking campaign that involves the use of hideous graphic images on cigarette packs to discourage smokers.

The health ministry's spokesperson Ester Paulus said the new cigarette packaging is part of the amended Tobacco Control Act of 2010.

She said the amended regulations call for all foreign companies that export cigarettes into the country to feature the images on their products to discourage smoking.

“All cigarettes packages should have the type of pictures that show types of diseases that come as a result of smoking so that people can stop smoking. People should stop smoking,” said Paulus.

Dunhill and Peter Stuyvesant are some of the companies that have put on their cigarette packets images of cancer-infected lungs, rotten teeth and all sorts of deformities that come as a result of smoking.

The graphic images have sent smokers squirming in fear of getting cancer and other smoking related diseases.

People who spoke to The Namibian yesterday said they were definitely scared and some made promises to quit when they saw the packaging while others say the addiction to smoking overrode their fear and they continue to buy the cigarettes anyway.

Thirty six-year-old John Karumba who has been smoking for the past seven years, said he changes the casing so that he doesn't have to look at those scary photos.

Another smoker Charlie who uses R1 Slim Ultra online said when he goes out to buy cigarettes, he makes sure that he asks for the ones in the old packages that do not have the graphic images.

“It is very discouraging to see those photos. But I will not stop smoking now, maybe next year,” said Charlie.