Soon, cigarette packages will show grisly, colored images of corpses, babies on respirators and sickly lung cancer victims – all in the name of grossing out smokers into quitting, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on Wednesday.

Under the pictures, cigarette manufacturers will have to print warnings such as “WARNING: Smoking can kill you” and “WARNING: Tobacco smoke causes fatal disease in nonsmokers.”

“Every day, almost 4,000 youth try a cigarette for the first time and 1,000 youth become regular, daily smokers,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a  statement. “Today marks an important milestone in protecting our children and the health of the American public.”

The new regulation will be implemented on Sept. 22, 2012. By Oct. 22 of that year, all cigarette manufacturers in the U.S. will be required to carry the warnings.

The public can comment on the 36 proposed warnings through Jan. 9, 2011, according to the statement. By June 22 of next year, the FDA will select nine final warnings based on the public comments and results from scientific studies.

“Today, FDA takes a crucial step toward reducing the tremendous toll of illness and death caused by tobacco use by proposing to dramatically change how cigarette packages and advertising look in this country. When the rule takes effect, the health consequences of smoking will be obvious every time someone picks up a pack of cigarettes,” said FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, in a statement.

Other countries, such as Canada and Australia, have adopted similar warnings. In Canada, there has been a 5 percent drop in smoking rates since the graphic warnings were implemented, said David Hammond, an assistant professor of health studies at the University of Waterloo, to HealthDay.