MPs have proposed new measures including one that would see “smoking kill” printed on individual cigarettes in a bid to encourage smokers to quit, reports The Guardian.

An amendment to the health and care bill that is going through parliament could make health warnings on individual cigarettes mandatory. Cigarettes packets already feature graphic images and warning messages such as “smoking causes cancer” and now several MPs, with Labour’s Mary Kelly Foy at the forefront, are calling for health information to be included inside packets.
“We know that cigarettes are cancer sticks and kill half the people who use them. So I hope that health warnings on cigarettes would deter people from being tempted to smoke in the first place, especially young people,” she said Mary Kelly Foy.
The amendment to the bill would also allow the government to impose a new levy on tobacco company profits, with the proceeds being used to fund stop smoking activities, as well as raise the legal age for buying cigarettes from 18 to 21 and make it illegal to give away e-cigarettes as free samples, according to The Guardian.
Cancer Research UK, the Royal College of Physicians, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth and shadow justice secretary Alex Cunningham are all backing the amendment as is Conservative MP Bob Blackman, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said, “Warnings on cigarettes were suggested over 40 years ago by then health minister George Young. The tobacco companies, with breath-taking hypocrisy, protested that the ink would be toxic to smokers. The truth is cigarette stick warnings are toxic to big tobacco and this is an idea whose time has come.”
On the other side, Simon Clark, the director of the pro-smoking group Forest, criticised the moves proposed by Foy. “Everyone is aware of the health risks of smoking. There are huge, impossible-to-miss health warnings on every pack of cigarettes, including grotesque images of smoking-related diseases. Tobacco is sold in standardised packing and banned from display in shops. Enough is enough. If adults still choose to smoke that is a matter for them, not the government.”