We love pictorial warnings at Lawhaha.com, as shown by the samples here, here, here, here, and here.  These are supposedly universal warnings designed to be understood by everyone.  As in these warnings on the outside of a dehumidifier box, they are often accompanied by written warnings.  But not everyone can read the written warnings, either because of language barriers or simply an inability to read.

So how do these pictorial warnings rate?  When I look at the first one, all I can think of is the David Bowie song, “Let’s Dance.”  What is it trying to convey?  That you need two people to pick the thing up.  I think that one probably works, assuming for the sake of argument that people need a warning not to pick up large heavy objects without assistance.

These next three warnings on the same box are a mixed bag.  No idea what “4” stands for.  Assuming it’s something on a scale, but “4” out of what?  And what is it measuring?  Please send word.  The second one might be a warning to not put your wine glass on the dehumidifier, but, on the outside packaging, it’s probably a warning that the contents are breakable.  The third one?  Who knows?  Don’t stomp on it?  Don’t kick it?  Hmm, maybe don’t stand on it, which I could see, but if that’s the case, shouldn’t they have a box under the boot?

We like to have fun with these, but let’s face it, the real problem is that it’s almost impossible to meaningfully convey most product warnings via a symbol.

And a whole lot of other undesirable results.

The World Health Organization (WHO) directs, in Article 11 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, that parties to the convention “implement large, rotating health warnings on all tobacco product packaging and labelling.”

The WHO website shows twenty countries (and their mandated warnings) currently participating, including Brazil, which is where the Florida International University law student who gave me this pack of Marlboros purchased it.

Some of the warnings are much more graphic.

Other countries mandate pictorial warnings without belonging to the WHO convention.  In the United States, graphic pictorial warnings on cigarette packages were torpedoed by a lawsuit in which the tobacco industry successfully argued before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. FDA that requiring them to put pictorial warnings on “the top 50 percent of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages and 20 percent of the area of each cigarette advertisement” violated their First Amendment rights.

The warnings were authorized by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 1989, which directed the U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Services to adopt regulations requiring cigarettes to bear “color graphics depicting the negative health consequences of smoking.”

The Obama Administration backed away from the requirements after the decision.

The data is mixed as to whether pictorial cigarette warnings change smoking behavior.  A study of 4000 smokers in Malaysia and Thailand found the warnings had an effect in Thailand, but not Malaysia.