Philip Morris wins reprieve over cigarette health warnings in Thailand - The Guardian

Warning signs on cigarettes in Bangkok: new regulations would require labels on the dangers of smoking to cover 85% of packaging. Photograph: Apichart Weerawong/AP

Tobacco giant Philip Morris has won a temporary victory in its fight to keep larger health warnings off cigarettes for sale in Thailand.

The company on Monday praised a court's decision to temporarily suspend a government deadline of 2 October for new labels on the dangers of smoking to cover 85% of a cigarette package. The existing requirement is for 55%.

Onanong Pratakphiriya, a spokeswoman for Bangkok-based Philip Morris, said warning labels were not effective. She also said the regulation was "illogical", since it exempts cheap, roll-your-own cigarettes, which she said accounted for almost half the tobacco consumed in Thailand.

Onanong also said a recent government survey showed the health risks associated with smoking were "known universally in Thailand".

The injunction, issued by a Thai court on Friday, will stay in place, pending a lawsuit by Philip Morris and more than 1,400 Thai retailers trying to overturn the regulation. The company said it expected the legal process to take more than a year. The public health ministry said it would most likely appeal against the court injunction.

About 50,000 people die from smoking-related diseases each year in the south-east Asian nation of about 65 million people.

Nopporn Cheanklin of the public health ministry's disease control department argued that larger warnings were more effective.

"The bigger the warnings are, the better we will be at preventing people from smoking," he said. Labels are meant not only to remind smokers of the risks but to prevent children from starting, he said.

"If cigarette packages are attractive, youngsters will be drawn to them," Nopporn said. "Our goal is to scare [children], so there won't be any new smokers."

The lawsuit also contends that the regulation is illegal because it was enacted without consulting the Thai tobacco industry – retailers, distributors, manufacturers and others – which will be most affected by the labels and suffer "potential negative consequences".