Like cigarettes, alcohol is a social drug associated with considerable health and social costs. Relative to cigarettes, regulators worldwide have imposted very modest restrictions in its advertisements. Studies on alcohol health warnings show that they do not have a strong effect on influencing recall, perceptions, and behaviors. Poorly visible and ambiguous health warnings plus the absence of pictorial warnings muddy previous studies. This study takes a different approach, extracting lessons from cigarette health warnings literature for application to the alcohol health warnings' research and practice. I recommend the development of direct health warnings; increase in visibility of the warnings; incorporation of pictorial health warnings; and consideration of plain packaging for alcohol products. A toolkit of these best practices could advance the case for stringent alcohol health warnings policies.

Unlike previous studies, this study reveals that health warnings, if similar to those on cigarette packs, can change consumer-based and product-based perceptions of alcohol products. The study reveals the importance of serious consideration of stringent alcohol warning policy research.

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Purpose: To examine the extent to which increasingly plainer packaging might increase recall of health warnings. Design: A 4 (pack ID levels) x 2 (smoking status: smokers and non-smokers) between-subjects design in which participants were randomly assigned to view one package. Sample: Two hundred and twenty students from three universities in Nova Scotia, Canada, participated in the survey. Measures: Participants were asked to recall the health warning on their package. Analysis: A sequential binary logistic regression test to examine whether plain packaging and/ or smoking status affects health warning recall. Results: The odds of recalling the correct health warnings were significantly higher for the two plainest packages relative to the original package. The odds of recalling the correct health warning were also higher for non-smokers relative to smokers. Conclusions:The results provide compelling evidence that health warnings on plain packages can be more easily recalled.