Another day, another tobacco companys devious behaviour: cutout health warning labels on Indonesian cigarette packs

The tobacco industry has responded to increasingly restrictive marketing environments for their harmful products with a continued focus on appealing packaging. In countries where plain and standardised packaging is not mandated, tobacco packs routinely feature characterising flavours and concept descriptors,1 2 bright colours, misleading descriptors,3–5 and cultural,6 7 feminine,8 sporty,9 and youth10 appeals—each of which might distract or detract from health warning labels (HWLs).

Following the protocol of the Tobacco Pack Surveillance System,11 our recent (September 2022) systematic collection of tobacco packs in Indonesia uncovered a concerning practice of a tobacco company altering the HWLs on cigarette packs to reduce the coverage, increase the branding space and potentially undermine HWL effectiveness. In this collection, we found four unique cigarette packs with a cutout on the front HWL area that…

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