New warnings 'will encourage smokers to quit'

A spokesperson for an anti-smoking organisation has said she is confident that new warnings to be introduced on cigarette packets will encourage more people to quit.

As of tomorrow (October 1st), all cigarette packets will carry pictures of rotting teeth and lungs, throat cancer and a 'flaccid cigarette' as opposed to written warnings, in the hope that seeing such shocking images will cause people to reconsider their habit.

The unnamed source from Action on Smoking and Health said that this tactic has already worked in countries such as Canada and Australia and denied that it is heavy-handed.

"To be effective they really do have to be quite gruesome. If they were too mild and didn't really convey the full impact of smoking then they are less likely to be noticed and people are less likely to take action," she remarked.

According to Cancer Research, the amount of people quitting smoking fell sharply during the 1970s, but levelled out as of 1991, with a quarter of men reporting being smokers in 2005.

This is despite the fact that smoking causes more than a quarter of all cancer-related deaths in the UK and has caused an estimated 100 million deaths worldwide in the last 100 years.