MELBOURNE (Reuters Health) - Australian health organisations have called for the government to include graphic anti-smoking pictures on cigarette packets, following the success of such packaging in Canada.

The Cancer Council of Australia, National Heart Foundation and Australian Medical Association have all cited the success of the Canadian program, which depicts images such as lung tumours or a brain after a stroke in pictures covering half the packet. A recent study conducted for the Canadian Cancer Society found almost half the smokers who participated said the warnings had increased their motivation to quit, while more than one third of smokers who tried to quit in 2001 said the labels had been a factor.

The shocking images, which the Canadian Cancer Society said Brazil will introduce by the end of January and which are an option in the European Union, cover up half a Canadian cigarette pack. They have been mandatory in Canada for over a year.

Professor Ron Borland, director of the VicHealth Centre for Tobacco Control, told Reuters Health that Australia is already testing a similar concept using mock-ups of packets with the new warnings. Half of the smokers who were shown the packets indicated that ``it would make them stop and think,'' according to Borland. He said he expects regulations to be enacted this year to enforce packaging changes by early 2003.

``Australia should be going down the same sort of line as Canada'', Borland said. ``It's easier in Australia where there's one main language. We should have 60-70% of the front taken up with graphic pictures and the entire back of the pack used to provide detailed information that's not misleading about the contents.''

Borland particularly criticized manufacturers who label some cigarettes as ``light'' when, he said, they are not light at all. Borland said that the advantages of such packaging is that it is cheap and seen by the smoker at the point of lighting up. He admitted that television campaigns are, however, more effective, as film can be more disturbing than a still picture.

Australia is currently running an ``Every Cigarette is Doing You Damage'' media campaign, showing bloody pictures of sliced up lungs covered in tar, and blood vessels in the eye bleeding out. In the first six months of the campaign, 200,000 people gave up the habit, according to Borland.

Borland estimated that while adopting the Canadian practice of graphic package advertisements may only reduce the incidence of smoking in Australia by 1-2%, this would be in addition to other Australian anti-smoking programs currently in place. ``If 1% of smokers stop in a year we've done a good job,'' he said.

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