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”
Robin Ireland
RT @leftfootfwd: How plain packaging on cigarettes will work. http://t.co/KUUjTDWF Now wait for massive industry denialism and obfuscation
luisco9
Hey Tories, ASH want you to know that plain packaging is a true Labour policy. Just sayin' like. http://t.co/SQyW9Fc2
Debra Lapthorne
RT @leftfootfwd: How plain packaging on cigarettes will work. http://t.co/KUUjTDWF Now wait for massive industry denialism and obfuscation
Bryan Stoten
Angela glad you are so concerned about the public purse, I’m sure the economic case against tobacco has just passed you by. However the cost of treating tobacco related disease in the oncology and cardiology units for which I have a responsibility is enraging to anyone who wants to get on and deal with unavoidable morbidity.
Foolishness and ignorance are no excuse for posting this kind of uninformed abuse!
Fiona Andrews
If you want to make a real difference to health inequalities. If you want to cut the unfair gap in life expectancy linked to smoking then supporting plain (standardised) tobacco packaging is a great way to do it. Take 2 minutes out to click on our dedicated website http://www.plainpacksprotect.co.uk and make your voice heard in this debate. Smokefree South West, major charities such as British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and a whole range of other organsisations think the evidence is compelling. We’ve already had over 32,000 people show their support at our dedicated website and would be delighted if you could give us your backing by signing up too.