Tobacco packaging serves as a critical link to consumers, both for the tobacco industry and for governments seeking to convey the health risks of smoking.

Health warnings labels have a lot of advantages, such as following:

• Package health warnings are among the most prominent and cost-effective health communications available.
• Health warnings have high awareness and visibility among non-smokers and youth.
• Large, prominent warnings located on the top of packages can increase health knowledge, motivation to quit, and cessation behavior.
• Pictorial warnings are significantly more effective than text-only messages.
• Pictures are especially important for reaching low-literacy smokers and children.
• Messages that depict health risks in a vivid and emotionally arousing manner are most effective.
• There are no adverse effects in response to pictorial warnings.

Researchers explained that cigarettes graphic warnings must be regularly updated for to maintain maximum impact.

Nevertheless, the tobacco warnings became a new worry for the National Health Department. Because not all states are agree to introduce such warning in their states. That’s why it started to study such warnings from different countries, including Brazil and Thailand also.

Fidel Hadebe, the South Africa spokesperson, said that his state will introduce such warnings only after studying these images for to check if they are not culturally or religiously insensitive to South African consumers.

Hedebe said: "We don't just want to put out these graphics without attracting with an important stakeholder first. There is a long process to follow before we can decide, taking into account our diverse cultures and religion."

He added that they believed that some of the cigarette warnings will be too nasty for most South Africans. For example there are warnings tied to other things, such as penile and cervical cancer.

In addition to graphic warnings, the new antismoking legislation will also increase fines for people who smoke in public places, and bans smoking in cars when a child younger than 12 is a passenger.

According to the World Health Organization, about 5.4 million people died of smoking-related illnesses in 2004. And they predict that this number will jump to eight million by 2030.

Effective warnings, especially those with pictures, had been proven to motivate smokers to quit and discouraged non-smokers from starting.