Three of Canada's largest tobacco companies will stop describing their cigarettes as 'light' or 'mild' by the middle of next year, regulators said on Thursday.

The competition bureau said Imperial Tobacco Canada, Rothmans Benson & Hedges and JTI-Macdonald agreed to not use the terms on cigarette packages before being forced to do so by health officials.
Use of those terms has already been eliminated from marketing in Australia and the European Union. The industry knew that regulations to ban the terms were being prepared by Health Canada so it moved up the dates for getting them off the packages, said Karen Bodirsky, a spokeswoman for Rothmans. (pi)