CANBERRA, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Australia has become the second country in the world to print health warnings on individual cigarettes.

Under sweeping tobacco packaging laws that came into effect on Tuesday, every individual cigarette sold in Australia will be printed with one of eight health warnings.

The new health warnings on individual cigarettes include the phrases "causes 16 cancers," "damages your lungs" and "poisons in every puff."

Canada is the only other country to have similar warnings on individual cigarettes.

In 2012, Australia became the first country in the world to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products, with branding replaced by graphic health warnings.

The new laws that came into effect on Tuesday introduced 10 new graphic health warnings that will be printed on tobacco packaging as well as 10 new inserts that will be placed inside packaging providing information on the benefits of quitting smoking.

The new measures were welcomed by the Cancer Council and Quit, Australia's leading support service for smoking cessation.

Sarah Durkin from the Cancer Council said that the graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging have proven effective in educating Australians about the harms of smoking but that the effectiveness of the warnings has decreased over time.

"We also have new scientific information that extends our knowledge of the health effects of tobacco use," she said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The new graphic health warnings feature some of these harms of smoking that people may not be aware of, such as diabetes, erectile dysfunction, cervical cancer, DNA damage, and the impact of second-hand smoke on children's lung capacity."

According to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the proportion of Australians aged 14 and over who are daily smokers fell from 25 percent in 1993 to 8.3 percent in 2022-23. Enditem

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