The Health Promotion Board (HPB), in partnership with the Health Sciences Authority (HSA), will introduce stronger tobacco control measures, under the amendments to the Tobacco (Control of Advertisements and Sale) Act.
The HPB said on Thursday that misleading descriptors will be banned.
This will affect about a quarter of the cigarette brands currently sold in Singapore.
A new set of graphic health warnings and extension of graphic health warning labels to the outer packaging or carton packaging will be introduced.
The maximum tar and nicotine limits will be lowered.
The tar and nicotine yield levels must be accompanied with a new health information requirement.
Cigarillos, which is the Spanish word for a short narrow cigar, must be sold in packs of 20, instead of the current 10.
These changes follow amendments to the Smoking (Control of Advertisements and Sale of Tobacco) Act in 2010.
A briefing session was held on Thursday morning to communicate the changes to the tobacco industry.
The industry has been given until 1 March 2013 to implement these changes.
Chief Executive Officer of HPB, Mr Ang Hak Seng, said the reality is that smoking kills, regardless of what type of cigarette it is.
He said there is no evidence that 'light' and 'mild' cigarettes are any less harmful.
He said many smokers who want to quit the habit but found it challenging tend to switch to cigarettes with these descriptors because they think that these cigarettes are less harmful.
In 2009, HPB conducted a study with more than a thousand respondents, aged 18 to 69, to assess the impact such descriptors have on consumer perception.
Among smokers and non-smokers surveyed, a significantly higher proportion believed that cigarettes labelled 'light', 'mild', 'low tar' and 'ultra light' delivered less nicotine.
These also believed that such cigarettes were less harmful to health and made it easier to quit smoking.
For example, 63 per cent of smokers believed that 'light' cigarettes were less harmful than 'regular' cigarettes, compared with 28 per cent of smokers who indicated no difference between the two.
Almost twice as many smokers believed that 'mild' cigarettes were less harmful, compared to those who indicated no difference between the two.
Similar perceptions were observed when the misleading descriptors were part of the brand name.
The HPB said it's imperative that Singapore bans such misleading descriptors.
Singapore first implemented graphic health warnings on cigarette packs in August 2004.
These are regularly rotated to maintain the effectiveness of the images.
The last change was in 2006.
The HPB said international research has shown that the effectiveness of health warnings increases with their size.
It said that given that outer packaging, such as the carton, is also on display at the point of sale, extending the graphic health warnings to larger packaging will enhance the effect of the health warnings.
- CNA/ck
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