Health Warnings

I have been searching in vain for the answer to this and hope one of the knowledgeable contributors on here may know the answer - when did health warnings first appear on snuff tins/packaging in the U.K?

Late 2002?

I’m not sure if the UK enforced this on its own initiative… But I do remember that snuff packages came without any health warnings when I started taking snuff about 25 years ago. I mostly used Poschl snuffs back then. I remember all those boxes with neat full-sized labels. But I also had a small 5 g rectangular plastic + metal tin of J.&H.Wilson Top Mill No.1, brought from Prague back then. It didn’t have warning.

A superficial search returned this: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32001L0037

Directive 2001/37/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2001 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products was addressed to the 15 Member States, including the UK. Probably this…

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Late 90. definately pre 2004 J.H. Wilson Medicated No. 99 with localized health warning (Department of Public Health: Causes cancer).

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@JackGrave @Volunge I bought online a small 5g box of JH Wilson Top Mill. I was expecting to buy an empty tin but it was full up. It has no health warning on the front or back. Going by your comments I expect it’s at least 20 years old.

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@Huysmans, I assume you are right at mininal estimation. However, it may be much older than that.

Top Mill was my very first English snuff. I was probably 14 years old back then, and I found it super strong in comparison with Poschl and my childish homemade snuff, made from toasted cigarettes. I used it sparingly, for I knew that I won’t get another tin that easy. Those were pre-online ordering days.

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@Volunge I found a UK Government publication on the Parliament Website that corroborates the legislation information you found: “The Tobacco Products Labelling (Safety) Regulations 1991 came into force in 2 stages, 1 October 1991 and 1 January 1992. These regulations were required following the Council Directive 89/622/EEC which established a general warning to be carried on the unit packaging of all tobacco products, together with additional warnings exclusively for cigarettes. Council Directive 92/41/EEC extended the requirement for additional warnings to other tobacco products.” So it looks like UK snuff tins without health warnings at least predate 1992 unless the government mandated them before that date as per the health warnings on cigarette packets that were first enforced in 1971.

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