horrific Cigarette labels

Rotting teeth and gums. Diseased lungs. A sewn-up corpse of a smoker. Cigarette smoke coming out of the tracheotomyhole in a man's neck.

Cigarette packs in the US will have to carry these macabreimages in nine new warning labels that are part of a campaign by the Food and Drug Administration to use fear and disgust to discourage Americans from lighting up.

The labels, announced on Tuesday, represent the biggest change in cigarette packs in the US in 25 years.
At a time when the drop in the nation's smoking rate has come to a standstill, the government is hoping the in-your-facelabels will go further than the current surgeon generalwarnings toward curbing tobacco use, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths a year in the US.

These labels are frank, honest and powerful depictions of the health risks of smoking," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

The FDA estimates the labels will cut the number of smokers by 213,000 in 2013, with smaller additional reductions through 2031.