Other posters would direct smokers to where [image-nocss] they can get help to stamp out their habit, said the report.
Retailers who refuse to display the signs within two feet of tobacco displays and cash registers could face fines of $100 to $300, it added.
A retail industry group reacted with dismay, arguing that cramped corner stores are already burdened by too many regulatory dictums.
The initiative needs the approval of the state Public Health Councilan appointed panel of doctors, disease trackers, and consumer activistsbut board members have expressed "unequivocal support," said the report.
The signs are modeled on a campaign in New York City, where signs showing the health effects of smoking began appearing in 11,500 shops last December. Massachusetts health authorities provided copies of the New York City posters as an illustration of what their campaign will look like.
"If somebody is trying to quit smoking and they go back to the store and they're temptedoh, just one packwe hope this will help them make a different choice," Lois Keithly, director of the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation & Prevention Program, told the newspaper.
The campaign is being underwritten by $316,000 in federal stimulus money from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), which will allow the state to provide the materials to retailers without charge.
The Retailers Association of Massachusetts has not decided how aggressively it will fight the proposal, but the organization's president, Jon Hurst, left little doubt that most retailer will respond coolly to another mandate. That may prove especially true at convenience stores, where tobacco sales constitute a significant share of business, said the report.
"Do you really have to have additional graphic signage and multiple layers of it at each cash register?" Hurst, whose alliance has 3,100 members, told the Globe. "If you warn on everything, those warnings become essentially meaningless. They already have signage on alcohol, tobacco, lottery, they have signage on price accuracy."
The maker of Marlboro and other top-selling brands, Philip Morris USA, said it believes warnings should be uniform nationally and established by the federal government, which has been given expanded authority over tobacco marketing, the report said.
In New York, the graphic signs have met with little resistance from retailers and consumers, Anne Pearson, an attorney with the city's Bureau of Tobacco Control, told the paper. "There's a large body of evidence showing these graphic images are very effective," Pearson said. "They can communicate information in a way that text just can't, and they can also communicate a message to people regardless of their level of literacy and regardless of the language they speak."
The Massachusetts Public Health Council is expected to vote on the graphic posters in August, but the only misgiving members expressed, according to the report, was whether the campaign would be rendered in enough languages to reach the state's increasingly diverse population.
"We need to help our immigrant populations deal with this," said Dr. Michele David, a council member.
The regulations will vary, depending on whether stores have tobacco displays or, instead, keep cigarettes and other tobacco products behind the counter. The biggest signsthose displayed next to racks of tobacco goodswill measure 8-1/2-by-11-inches; cash register signs will be smaller, said the report.
Regardless of the size, the intent, tobacco control specialists said, is the same: to help the 77% of Massachusetts smokers who say they want to quit finally do it, said the Globe.
Click hereto view some of the New York City posters.
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