Martin Dockrell, policy and campaigns manager for Action on Smoking and Health, explains how plain packaging on cigarettes will work.
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Martin Dockrell is the policy and campaigns manager for Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
Andrew Lansley opens a consultation today on plain standardised packaging for the tobacco industry, picking up a proposal first mooted by Alan Johnson when he was Labour’s Secretary of State for Health. It is no surprise Labour’s front bench team have been enthusiastic in support.
Labour’s previous consultation received almost 100,000 responses: 98% of those responding on plain packaging supported the measure and analysis of the handful of opponents showed many had undisclosed links to the tobacco industry.
Nonetheless, the Labour government felt more evidence was needed to justify action. Since then the research has piled in.
A study recently published by Action on Smoking and Health was one among many to show:
• Plain packaging reduces misleading messages to smokers (light coloured packs used to be used for “light” and “mild” cigarettes and although labelling them as such is now illegal, smokers still think cigarettes in light coloured packs are less harmful;
• Plain packaging gives greater impact to health warnings;
• Most important of all, plain packs are much less attractive to young people.
As with Labour’s tobacco advertising ban almost a decade ago, adult smokers will not have their choice constrained – any who want to will continue to buy their favourite brand, and, as with the advertising ban, we can expect to see a steady reduction in the numbers of young people starting to smoke. The only people who will be constrained will be the tobacco manufacturers.
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Australia has already passed a similar law and will implement it by the end of the year. Needless to say the tobacco industry fought it tooth and nail.
The so-called Alliance of Australian Retailers pumped $5 million into an ad campaign against the legislation and even ran election time TV ads against Australia’s Labor Party but it was soon discovered that it was the tobacco manufacturers who were paying the bills.
Industry disinformation failed to convince the Australian electorate and legislators. Big Tobacco lost in parliament and is now trying to use trade agreements to over-rule the health policy of a sovereign government.
Their favourite ploy is to claim plain packs will be easier to counterfeit. In fact, existing packs are no obstacle to counterfeiters. The truly effective way of stopping fakes is to have invisible marks on the packs, which the industry already does. These already exist and will continue.
It is no surprise they are fighting so hard. Market failure has made UK tobacco companies among the most profitable in the country. Just two companies hold 84% of the UK market and one of them – Imperial Tobacco – made more than £3bn profit on just less than £7bn tobacco revenues.
The industry knows one cigarette is much like another and in blind tests smokers struggle to tell them apart. That makes packaging key to these huge profits because it allows manufacturers to sell premium brands at close to £8 per pack while using the excess profits to cross-subsidise “value brands”, selling for less than £5.50.
That way they reduce the incentive for poorer smokers who want to quit. Companies may blame the chancellor for the cost of smoking but every time the tax goes up they take a little extra for themselves.
The reason all this matters for the left is the main function of the tobacco market is to redistribute wealth away from the nation’s poorest families in favour of the City’s most profitable companies. And the poor pay for smoking in more ways than one: smoking rates are so much higher among poorer communities that half the difference in life expectancy between richest and poorest is down to smoking alone.
But poor smokers can leap the health gap by quitting. The poorest non-smokers have a better life expectancy than the richest smokers and research by Professor Robert West shows poorer smokers are just as likely to want to quit as rich ones. They are just as likely to try to quit too but they are half as likely to quit successfully.
Will health campaigners succeed this time when we failed under Labour? Not only is the evidence out there now, but popular support has grown. Annual polls show support had been growing gradually since 2008.
This year we changed the question, showing people what a “plain pack” might look like and support leapt up to 62% while opposition melted away to 11%. Even among smokers, for every five who thought it was a bad idea we found six who supported it.
43 Responses to “How plain packaging on cigarettes will work”
Nikki Jayne
I know if I still smoked this would make no difference to me, although I might buy a nice cigarette case instead.
I didn’t buy cigarettes because I liked the pack… I used to smoke B&H Silver and the slide packet design actually really pissed me off, but it didn’t make me change brands.
Chris Snowdon
A classic example of how ASH will say anything to get their policies through. I expect them to appear on a Conservative blog tomorrow saying what a wonderful Conservative policy plain packaging and how it appeals to Tory values.
This could be fisked at great length, but three quick points. The ‘market failure’ Dockrell pretends to care about is a direct result of ASH’s various bans which have made it possible for companies to compete. Plain packaging will do nothing to make people stop smoking, but it will bring the curtain down on any kind of competitive market.
Secondly, please spare us your crocodile tears about the poor. Nothing has done more to wipe out the gains of progressive taxation that sin taxes on tobacco, alcohol and (if the fanatics get their way) food. These are the most regressive policies imaginable and saying ‘the poor should give up smoking’ is not an adequate response when we know full well that people on low incomes are the least likely to quit and the most likely to buy tobacco on the black market.
Thirdly, it is true that 98% of the respondents to the last consultation were in favour of plain packaging. The fact that ASH’s own survey at the time found that less than half of people surveyed were in favour of the policy is a crystal clear indication that public consultations are no guide to public opinion. It turns out that over 70% of respondents had been gathered by groups funded by the Department of Health. I expect the same rigging this time, not least because the DoH is spending £100,000s of public money actively campaigning for the policy.
Laurencekate
My 8 year old already wants timberland boots, and north face fleeces. There can be no doubt that kids are attracted to brand and design. Adults can make informed decisions, kids can’t. Adults don’t start smoking, kids do….
Fiona Andrews
Tobacco companies need to find one new smoker for each of the 100,000 people that die or quit every year, and so it is in their interest to make their product as alluring as possible. Shiny holograms, pretty pastel colours and LEGO look-alike wrappers are just some of the eye-catching pack designs available. Surely this isn’t right? There is building evidence to suggest that these packs can attract and mislead children.
Angela Harbutt
What a patronising load of guff by ASH. And the sheer nerve of it. £500,000 has been ciphered of NHS budgets in the South West just to lobby those living down there that they should Andrew Lansley’s plan. Now if that isn’t government robbing the poor so it can say “ooh we have public support” i dont know what is. And is probably the tip of the iceberg. We just dont know – it took FOI requests and lots of evasion to get that information out of public services. Just how much NHS money is being spent ? I urge people to say no to plain packs – the counterfeiters’ charter and sign our petition http://www.handsoffourpacks.com