Pretty much everybody apart from hard-right Tory backbencher Philip Davies and groups funded by the tobacco industry support the government's plans on tobacco advertising.
Martin Dockrell is the policy and campaigns manager for Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
Early this morning I had a discussion on the BBC with Tory backbencher Philip Davies. Apparently, because I support the proposed curbs on tobacco marketing I am an extremist who will never be satisfied. Me and the Royal College of Physicians, BMA, Cancer Research UK, 170 other health groups in the Smokefree Action Coalition, the Labour Party, the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Tory front bench. Pretty much everybody apart from Davies and groups funded by the tobacco industry.
The 1997 Labour government made tobacco policy its own. Labour’s “Smoking Kills” white paper put the UK at the forefront of tobacco policy in Europe. However, the burden of smoking related disease falls most heavily on the most disadvantaged and to this day, half the difference in life expectancy between richest and poorest is down to smoking.
Today sees the publication of something we have never seen before – a Tobacco Plan from a Conservative led Government. The tobacco industry’s tactic of lobbying secretly behind retailer front groups has been exposed and appears to have been largely ineffective, so Labour’s legislation to ban cigarette vending machines and tobacco product displays has survived largely intact.
Unlike other areas of policy, the coalition has shown remarkable continuity with the policy of the last Labour government. When the Conservatives gave a free vote on the ban on smoking in public places they set the permitted politicians to listen to the evidence, making tobacco policy a cross party issue.
The coalition even appears to be adopting one of Labour’s most ambitious ideas – a law to get rid of what health secretary Andrew Lansley now calls the “glitzy packaging” of tobacco products. Australia is already set to be the first country to put tobacco in plain packaging from the middle of next year. The government there has been persuaded by academics whose research shows:
• How the tobacco industry uses packaging to make their brands more attractive to young people;
• How colour coding packs in red, gold and silver misleads smokers into thinking some cigarettes are less harmful or addictive than others;
• How plain packaging makes health warnings more effective.
New research published here for the first time shows there is already widespread support for plain packaging and as the public comes to understand the evidence better, support is set to grow.
When respondents were asked if they would support plain packaging “if there was evidence that plain packs were less likely to give the false impression that one type of cigarette is safer than another”, 64% said they would support the measure; when asked “if there were evidence that it improved the effectiveness of health warnings”, support rose to 75%; and if there were evidence that it made cigarettes less attractive to young people the proportion supporting rose to 80%.
Even smokers are more supportive “if” there is evidence that plain packs would be effective, particularly in making cigarettes less attractive to young people. Under these conditions 64% of daily smokers would support the introduction of plain packaging.
There are clear parallels with the rise in support for the ban on smoking in pubs and clubs. Support stood at a little over 50% in 2004 but according to a report by the Royal College of Physicians, as the public came to understand the evidence better, by 2007 – when the law was implemented – support had grown to more than 75 per cent.
Since implementation, as people have seen the benefits for themselves support has risen to 80%, rising fastest among smokers.
26 Responses to “Government is right to take action on tobacco packaging”
Chris
This is just another stage in the relentless attack on liberty and freedom by the Tory government continuing the work of the right of centre NuLabour government. The smoking ban has ruined the pub trade and 100,000 people have lost their jobs – low paid workers often supplementing their meagre day jobs with evening work. The ban has closed working men’s club and bingo halls en masse and left retired workers and old ladies with nowhere to go and no social life.
There is no evidence a display ban will work. None. All it will do is encourage smugglers and counterfeiters who aren’t bothered about selling to kids – it will be tantamount to child abuse. Did you see Panorama on Monday? The criminality surrounding cigarette smuggling and counterfeiting is unbelievable. They even attacked the BBC crew. The display ban will, for certain, close down many corner shops and more low paid workers will end up on the dole. But the Tories don’t care about part-time shop workers and shop owners scrapping a living, and nor will Dockrell safe in his well paid fake charity job’.
And what’s next from the chattering classes of the home counties? Well, it’s already started when ASH Scotland held a conference with anti drink groups, and told representatives of the alcohol industry they were not welcome. Presumably tens of thousands of well paid jobs will go in Scotland as distilleries close down. Oh and these fake charities like ASH and Alcohol Concern are paid for with our taxes, and they are ‘stakeholders’ whereas we, along with whisky companies, pubs, small shops and others are left out of consultations.
They’ve started on fat people and fast food. It’s all very well for wealthy Toies who can drink champagne and caviar; our only treat is a Macdonalds or the occasional pub meal (no smoking of course).
Who’s next? It could be you if you play football (costing the NHS a fortune etc), play rigby, enjoy pot-holing or climbing mountains. All of this interference in the lives of the working population has to stop. Now!
Left Off
Great to see Arch Tory Atherton foaming at the mouth. But this is an arena for socialists to talk to socialists so I want to remind those Labour supporting people in this discussion that smoking is the biggest single cause of premature death in working communities. It accounts for half the difference in life expectancy between richest and poorest in our society. By almost any measure of disadvantage, income, occupation, education, housing tenure, mental health etc you are more lilkely to die of smoking related illness. Socialists should ensure that working people shoulder no more of the burden of smoking related disease than do the rich and priveledged.
Dave Atherton
@Left Off “..this is an arena for socialists to talk to socialists.” Goes to prove to me how shallow your socialist arguments are if you do not want to engage with people of a different view.
“Socialists should ensure that working people shoulder no more of the burden of smoking related disease than do the rich and priveledged (sic).”
You are quite right in the sense that 15% of middle class people smoke compared to 30% of working class people. So the answer to smoking is better education and producing more middle class people.
Considering under Labour we have slipped from 6th to 20th in the world rankings for education, what chance on our dumbed down curriculum, prizes for all, do working class people have of bettering themselves? When you have spunked £4 trillion of my and taxpayers money on state control and non jobs in government, (like Martin Dockrell) where is the GDP growth coming from? Not forgetting you vandals destroyed grammar schools which gave many a working class person a chance. I speak as the son of an electrician and dinner lady who failed his 11+.
13 years of Labour will only exaggerate income, wealth and smoking differences. Nero fiddles while socialists burn their fingers in hypocrisy, trying to intellectualise and justify complete failure.
I tell you this Left Off you also confirm the foul stench of Marxists Self Consciousness in that you patronisingly want to “guide” the working class away from smoking assuming they do not know the risks. Perhaps 13 years of Labour many think that smoking is a pleasant form of assisted suicide. The 7 years early mortality I may endure as a smoker may blessing if the hammer and sickle return to Number 10.
Mr Amused
Dave Atherton,
The amount of time you spend supporting the pro-tobacco lobby on blogs like this, I’m surprised you have ever found the time to aspire to the middle classes and bolster GDP.
I challenge you to come out and say it, ” you think it is okay for the tobacco industry to target their lethal products at children”. By opposing all these necessary, long overdue measures that is effectively what you are saying.
Surely even someone with your extreme, right-wing views must accept that targeting tobacco products at children to secure future generations of smokers is morally wrong.
dave
People are wrong to think Dave Atherton is genuine. He’s a pretend pro-smoker, he makes nonsense comments to make the FOREST brigade look stupid. Last time I saw him post he was claiming that smoking cures asthma. Assumedly that’s the ‘better education’ about smoking he refers to here.