ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes current policies regarding health warnings on tobacco products and advertisements, both for the USA and internationally. It reviews the existing evidence on the effectiveness of tobacco health warnings and provides some new evidence of its own. Health warnings related to smoking include mandated warning labels on cigarette packages, warnings accompanying advertisements and distribution of other health materials. The spread of the Internet has opened up new possibilities both in dissemination of health warnings and in opening up avenues to by-pass existing mandates. On the other hand, the inability to police the Internet effectively, especially across international borders, has opened up avenues for tobacco sales/advertising from less-regulated or unregulated jurisdictions. The main problem in ascertaining the impact of health warnings on cigarette consumption appears to be the difficulty in getting a handle on the qualitative differences among various health warnings and the related institutional details.
