Research suggests strategies such as a ‘minutes of life lost’ counter on cigarettes, would be more effective than packet warnings

This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

Printing novel warnings including a “minutes of life lost” counter on individual cigarettes would help smokers kick the habit, new research argues.

Aaron Drovandi, from James Cook University, Queensland, conducts research into tobacco control and surveyed more than 2,000 smokers and non-smokers about how effective current and novel approaches to encourage people to quit or not start smoking are.

He found that although a significant number of Australians in recent decades no longer smoke, current strategies including plain packaging on cigarette packets were less effective for smokers.

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Most smokers had become desensitised to the warnings which were introduced in 2010 as part of Australia’s landmark plain-packaging legislation. Although they still encouraged some people to not start smoking, most existing smokers rated them a low deterrent.

“It’s simply due to repetitive exposure,” Drovandi told Guardian Australia. “If you look at a disgusting image it will have an effect, but after you see it many times it won’t have that same effect.

“The warnings on cigarette packages remained largely unchanged, things like the warning about emphysema or gangrene. They’re certainly graphic, but when you’re exposed to that graphic image over and over again it loses its impact.”

Instead novel warnings about how much cigarettes cost, the effect on family members or a “minutes of life lost” counter on individual cigarettes – which would show the minutes disappearing as the cigarette burned – were found to have the biggest effect.

“The novelty of warnings on individual cigarettes were roughly twice as a effective as on packaging, and we saw that repeated from a wide range of participants from different age groups and ethnicities,” Drovandi said.

Australia’s plain packaging laws laws were unsuccessfully challenged by tobacco companies, and have since been mimicked in other countries, including the UK.

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They have been credited with assisting in a decline in overall smoking rates. The 2016 national drug strategy household survey report found the smoking rate among adults in Australia was 12.8%, almost half what it was in 1995.

In September the federal government increased the tobacco excise by 12.5%. It will rise again in 2020. Anti-tobacco groups have used the increasing cost as a campaigning tool to convince smokers to quit.

“These warnings were considered particularly effective in increasing participants’ perceived susceptibility and severity to a wider range of consequences of smoking, and outlining the benefits of not smoking,” Drovandi said.

“The financial costs of smoking was a message considered novel, engaging, and widely applicable to the broader population, particularly by current smokers.”