Any smoker in the western world under the age of 75 can fairly be told: “You were warned.” The scientific evidence about what cigarettes do to the human body was not just unambiguous but widely known by the early 1950s. Yet a policymaking cliché holds that any adults who still smoke (20 per cent in the US) do so because they have not been educated. It was in the name of education that the US Food and Drug Administration rolled out its new cigarette packet warning labels this week. They will supplement the usual warnings about how smoking causes cancer, heart disease, etc with shocking photos. The FDA argues that 213,000 people will be moved to quit smoking after they see the new labels next year.
西方世界任何一名年龄低于75岁的烟民都会受到警告。早在20世纪50年代初，有关香烟对人体影响的科学证据就已清楚明了，广为人知。然而，制定政策者仍迂腐地认为，凡是仍在抽烟的成年人（在美国，烟民占人口的20%），都是因为他们没有受过相关的教育。美国食品和药物管理局(FDA)在6月底宣布推行新的香烟包装警示标识，其名义就是教育烟民。包装上除了抽烟会引发癌症、心脏病等疾病的常规警告，还将附上一些惊悚的图片。按照FDA的说法，明年会有21.3万人在看到标识后受到触动，开始戒烟。