OTTAWA - Health Minister Allan Rock is set to ban cigarette makers from using what he says are misleading words such as light and mild on their packaging.

Rock will announce plans for the prohibition today. ``Labelling cigarettes as light and mild offers smokers a false sense of security based on slick marketing and the misuse of words,'' he says in speaking notes obtained by The Star. The ban means drastic changes for the tobacco industry, which will be forced to change the names of many brands, including Player's Light and Matinée Extra Milds. More than half the cigarettes smoked in Canada have labels such as `light.' Rock will make the announcement in an address to a Canadian Medical Association conference. In late May, Rock asked the industry to voluntarily remove the words. He also told his department to come up with options for regulating or banning the words if companies didn't act on their own. There have been some talks with cigarette makers since then, but health officials say the companies are simply stalling. ``We've got no word from the tobacco companies that they want to comply on this,'' one said. Rock has now decided a total ban is the way to go. He has asked a ministerial advisory council on tobacco to come up with a detailed proposal by early September. Regulations would be introduced after that. ``Predictably, the industry will then challenge us - let them argue for their so-called right to continue to deceive and mislead Canadians rather than voluntarily doing what is right,'' the minister's text says. ``There is nothing light or mild about the lies of big tobacco.'' Studies have shown so-called light or mild cigarettes are just as dangerous as other regular brands. Smokers take deeper or more puffs of light cigarettes to inhale the same amount of nicotine and smoke. At the same time, some smokers believe they're making a healthier choice by picking lighter brands. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mild cigarettes as dangerous as regular brands, studies show -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's not clear how long companies will have to change their packaging. Details of the regulations still haven't been worked out, but one official said it's possible companies would be allowed to distinguish between products, by calling them, for example, DuMaurier 1, DuMaurier 2 and DuMaurier 3. Rock says cigarette makers ``deliberately disguise and ignore'' the fact light cigarettes are as lethal as regular ones and contain the same ingredients. The tobacco industry, however, insists it has never marketed light products as a safer alternative. Anti-smoking groups have been urging Rock to follow the lead of countries moving to block the use of light and mild. Brazil has come up with a list of forbidden words in legislation that comes into force at the end of the year. The European Union recently issued a directive for its member states to have even stricter legislation in place by 2003.

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