Frightening images won't help cut smoking: opinion

Some experts believe that the law requiring frightening images to be printed on cigarette packs in Kazakhstan will not reduce the number of smokers, NEWSru.com reports. The regulation will just create a new niche at the tobacco market. Similar requirements to cigarette packs are in effect in over 40 countries around the world. But their efficiency is not very high. For example, after 6 years of use of the images demonstrating the harm that tobacco causes to health in Canada the number of smokers went down only by 2.5 percent. According to the managing partner of InMar Relations agency Vladimir Kosykh, these images will not give any new information to the smokers. He believes that producers of these hazardous goods will find ways around the requirement and stick to printing the least frightening images. Director of Novosibirsk office of Melekhov&Filyurin advertisement group Aleksander Filyurin shares the same opinion. He says that the market is likely to adjust and find ways to avoid the discomfort thorough things like cases for cigarette packs. “They will be producing cases, tins, skins and stickers. Since smokers don’t feel comfortable looking at these images and they will look for ways to cover them,” he said. Director of Kazakhstan National Center for Healthy Lifestyle Zhamilya Battakova has a different opinion. She believes that ‘deglamoring' of the cigarettes will decrease the number of smokers in Kazakhstan. However she attached no percentage to her forecasts. The respective government decree will come in force only on July 4, 2013. But some producers have already started placing the pictures on their products ahead of time.