In an effort to find new ways to shock smokers out of the habit, warnings on cigarette packs will be enlarged next year, the director of public health, Mario Spiteri, said.
Dr Spiteri said preparations were being made to introduce the new pack warnings as soon as parliament approved the necessary legislation.
He said the new legislation would put Malta in line with the EU, where tobacco health warnings were being enlarged to cover almost 40 per cent of the pack.
Some EU countries have already introduced the new packs while other member states will be introducing them next year. Some EU member states are also preparing to launch shocking pictures that could help deter smokers.
"The pictures being considered in EU countries include horrendous images of rotten teeth and gums and diseased lungs. I strongly recommend that the Maltese government also start considering such measures," Dr Spiteri said.
He said the new big warnings were a good start and an important step in the right direction. "Within six to nine months the local market will have the new packs which have already been prepared by the authorities. Obviously the industry wants some time to make the necessary adjustment related to printing but once parliament approves the necessary legislation we can move on."
Within six months, "mild" or "light" cigarette packs will no longer be available on the market.
"There is no such thing as a mild cigarette. That's a marketing gimmick which will have to go. All scientific evidence shows that the damage is still done, irrespective of whether a pack is marked mild or light. Unfortunately, for many years the label 'mild' or 'light' has given a false sense of security to a significant number of people who were aware that smoking is bad. This has to stop," he said.
Dr Spiteri said the size of the new warning would take up a third of the front of the package and half of the back.
"I urge the government to speed up the legislative process. The quicker it is concluded, the faster we can have the new packs available in Malta.
"We will have different warnings on the packs. We have warnings like 'smokers die younger' or 'smoking when pregnant harms your baby'.
"Other warnings contain very harsh messages: 'smoking damages the health of those around you', 'smoking causes heart diseases' and 'smoking is highly addictive, don't start'."
Dr Spiteri said the short experience in other countries where such warnings were introduced had been very encouraging. "The data we are receiving is that these blunt warnings are having an effect. The present warnings that we have are too vague. Telling smokers that smoking 'may' affect their health is really an understatement."
According to the latest figures, one in three Europeans smokes, but the percentage of smokers seems to be higher in the younger age groups.
In Malta, Dr Spiteri remarked, an effort was being made to reduce the number of young smokers. A recent survey established that 24.7 per cent of Maltese underaged youths have tried smoking; 24.4 per cent of the boys and 24.9 per cent of the girls have experimented.
"Rates of smoking among Maltese youths are comparable with those among young people in EU member states. Analytic surveys by gender show that, at the age of 11 boys rate higher in tobacco experimentation compared to girls while at age 13 there appear to be striking increases in the average rates of youngsters who have smoked tobacco in comparison to the 11-year-olds. This increase is obvious in all EU member states and in Malta.
"An important consideration is that in the 13-year-old bracket there is an increasing rate of young girls who have tried smoking in comparison to boys. Furthermore, among the 15-year-olds, the number of girls who smoke is slightly larger than the number of boys," Dr Spiteri said.
The European Commission is considering using worker safety legislation to ban smoking in cafés, bars and restaurants throughout the EU.
The Commission has launched a series of measures to crack down on smoking, including a ban on tobacco advertising and the need to have graphic images of diseased lungs and other organs on cigarette packets to warn of the dangers of smoking.
EU Health Commissioner David Byrne was quoted as saying he could also launch a workplace ban. Such rules are common in the US, where 100 cities, including New York, ban smoking in bars and restaurants.
Thorsten Muench, a spokesman for Employment and Social Welfare Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou, who would also be involved in drafting such rules, confirmed that the EU executive was looking into such measures.