Cigarette packages might someday be half-covered with graphic health warnings, thanks to the work of Marvin Goldberg, marketing professor.

The graphic warnings are already required in Canada after Goldberg and his colleagues recommended them in a report for Health Canada in 1995. Also, cigarettes manufactured in the United States and sold in Canada must have black and white health warnings over half the package.

One of the pictures shows a smile with blackened gums and rotten teeth, next to a message that cigarettes cause oral cancer and gum disease.

Another graphic portrays a cigarette flopping over, indicating, "Tobacco use can make you impotent."

Goldberg said the first image he experimented with in his Health Canada report was of a cigarette leading into two lungs that were falling apart.

The United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against U.S. tobacco companies, demanding that they place similar graphic warnings on cigarettes in addition to the text-only surgeon general's warning, Goldberg said. In research for the 1995 report, Goldberg found that reducing the color of the package and placing graphic health warnings were effective in reducing teenage smoking.

"The goal is to remove the capacity of cigarettes to be a badge," Goldberg said.

For younger smokers, certain trademark colors and brand name recognition act as a badge value to make them feel cool or sophisticated, Goldberg said. "It says to somebody, 'This is a badge that tells you about me,' " Goldberg said.

But he said the removal of color from packages might not be as important for longtime smokers.

"Adults who have been smoking for years don't care about the badge; they just want the tobacco," Goldberg said.

Chris Owens, community health educator at Penn State, was not sure how effective the graphics would be in the United States, although he said there is a good potential to decrease student smoking.

"Whether or not there's a disgusting picture, they may not care if they're already addicted," Owens said.

According to a 1999 Penn State Pulse survey, 43 percent of Penn State students are smokers.

As for the U.S. lawsuit, Lynn Kozlowski, one of Goldberg's collaborators and head of the department of biobehavioral health, is skeptical of whether graphics will be used here.

"Cigarette packs are viewed as a form of commercial speech," Kozlowski said, adding that the courts stay far from restricting the First Amendment.

Goldberg was also uncertain of what the outcome will be. "I think it's going to be a long struggle with the courts and it will be an uphill battle," he said.