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To measure the effectiveness of the messages, Health Canada commissioned Environics Research Group to do a baseline survey of smokers this past March. The $140,000 research project surveyed 1,505 Canadian adult smokers.

The survey found smokers overwhelmingly recognize smoking is a major health problem, citing lung cancer, cancer in general, heart attacks and emphysema, among other health effects. Just three per cent think it’s not a health problem.

About half say they get information about the health effects of cigarette smoking from cigarette packages, with nearly nine in 10 saying they have seen, heard or read about the earlier health warning messages. One in three say they look at the warning messages at least once a day.

Most smokers say the warning messages provide accurate, important information about the health effects of smoking. The images they recall tend to be the most graphic — pictures of diseased lungs or rotting teeth, for example.

Smokers say the messages are most effective in providing health information and encouraging them to smoke less around others.

But fewer than half consider them effective at changing their overall smoking habit, the survey found.

About four in 10 say the messages have increased their desire to quit smoking or made them try to quit. Just one in three say they have been effective in getting them to smoke less.

The survey provides a vivid portrait of Canadian smokers. It found that the average smoker began to smoke at 15. Nearly nine in 10 smoke daily, with almost four in 10 consuming more 20 or more cigarettes daily. The average per day is 16.

The Environics survey, conducted from March 7 to March 31, 2012, is considered accurate to within plus or minus 2.5 percentage points in 19 out of 20 samples.