Tobacco industry claims on cigarette packaging are nonsense
A quarter of all cancer deaths are caused by smoking. Our research tells us that plain packaging will make cigarettes less attractive to young people and help cut the number who are drawn into this deadly addiction. It would mean that all cigarette packs look the same – with no branding but with large health warnings.
The tobacco industry hates the idea. While the UK government considers the pros and cons of plain packs, they’ve been spending millions(requires registration) on adverts claiming that it will massively increase smuggling because the new packs will be easier to forge.
If true, this would be a big problem. Illicit cigarettes make it cheaper to smoke, leading to more people smoking – and more people dying from cancer.
To see if their claims stack up, we asked for the view of an international tobacco smuggling expert, Luk Joossens, whose career has seen him advise the World Bank, the European Commission and the World Health Organisation on this issue. And today we’ve published Joossens’ detailed report on the matter, which you can download here.
The idea that tobacco should be sold in plain packs without branding – but crucially with large health warnings – was suggested years ago by experts in reducing smoking. It’s no surprise that the tobacco industry has been absolutely determined in its opposition – one industry insider said [pdf]: “we don’t want to see plain packaging introduced anywhere regardless of the size and importance of the market.”
So far they’ve had a lot of success in fighting every attempt to introduce plain packs, although we’re delighted that next year Australia may become the first country in the world to bring it in.
That means that if we want to learn more about the impact of plain packaging, we can’t simply look at a country which has already taken that step. But one of Cancer Research UK’s tobacco experts, Dr Crawford Moodie, has been studying what happens in the real world when young smokers use non-branded packs.
Cigarette vending machines are now a thing of the past
If you go to the pub this weekend you might notice a slight difference – no more vending machines selling cigarettes. That means underage smokers will find it harder to get hold of them.
Without having to have a face-to-face encounter with a shopkeeper, vending machines were a ridiculously easy way for teenagers to buy cigarettes. In fact, when local councils tested whether underage people were able to purchase cigarettes from vending machines in the last financial year, they managed to buy them in over half of the venues they visited.
Durham University is facingprotests after taking £125,000 from tobacco firm British American Tobacco (BAT) to help fund scholarships for women from Afghanistan. The tobacco industry’s record means academic institutions should have nothing to do with it.
This isn’t just because they sell the only consumer product that, used exactly as intended by the manufacturer, kills a large proportion of its users – 100,000 people in the UK, including 25 per cent of deaths from cancer.
The tobacco industry seeks to gain unwarranted respectability by association with credible bodies such as universities. Companies like BAT want to be seen as socially responsible so governments do not take effective steps to curb smoking.
These kinds of donations aim to create an environment where there are soft government policies on tobacco – these lead to fewer quitters and more deaths from lung cancer and many other diseases.
Today, the Government has announced that displays of tobacco in shops will be taken down, and they’re considering whether cigarettes should also be sold in plain packs.
Taking action against tobacco marketing is always welcome: tobacco causes one in four deaths from cancer, and half of longterm smokers will die from their addiction
The vast majority of adult smokers start in their teens so they are a top target for the tobacco industry. And since adverts in the media were banned, the tobacco industry has targeted their marketing on the glossy displays of cigarettes in shops and making their packaging attractive.
Although supermarket displays will be taken down by April 2012, today’s announcement delays the removal of displays in small shops until April 2015. We are very disappointed that they will last longer than they need to. The tobacco industry has led a massive campaign in favour of tobacco displays, based on various dubious arguments. In fact, Ireland has introduced very similar laws – and their shops found it straightforward to adapt.
Plain packaging back on the table
We are also pleased that the Government is looking at the introduction of plain packs – this could be every bit as significant in combating the harms of tobacco as the advertising ban or the end of smoking in public places.
The idea is that, rather than having all kinds of branding to make cigarettes appeal to different people, such as pink packets or long slim cigarettes for young women, all cigarettes and packets will look the same.
Research has found that plain packs would make smoking less attractive to young people while it will also improve the effectiveness of health warnings. Cigarette companies also use colours like silver indicating that some types of cigarettes are lower in tar and suggesting they are safer than other brands when, in fact, this is not true. Plain packs reduce these false beliefs.
Plain packaging of cigarettes and the removal of tobacco displays in shops are two policies backed by years of research.
It’s good that displays are eventually going – but the next step must be to end the attractive branding of cigarettes.
Cancer Research UK and our supporters have long called for an end to ‘tobacco powerwalls’ in shops.
The large brightly lit displays act like big adverts for tobacco brands and, placed next to the sweets and crisps in shops, tobacco displays make smoking seem like a normal, everyday activity.
Smoking’s an addiction that’s encouraged by tobacco companies’ marketing, which is designed to hook more people and keep current smokers hooked. Smoking is the single biggest cause of cancer in the world, and accounts for one in four UK cancer deaths.
MPs voted to ban these displays last year, but the new Government has yet to implement this decision. We need your help to persuade them to act.
These reports are worrying, as is the amount of effort the tobacco industry has spent lobbying on this issue.
In response to this, we jointly wrote a letter to the Sunday Times, together with ASH, the British Heart Foundation, The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and the British Medical association, which was published yesterday:
Tobacco is responsible for more than a quarter of cancer deaths. Over the last year, we’ve been campaigning hard to get displays of tobacco products removed from shops – a campaign that’s had overwhelming backing from our supporters and the wider public.
The matter was debated at length in Westminster as part of the 2009 Health Bill, and MPs voted for this to become law earlier this year. But the new Government has not yet implemented the regulations.
Removing this so-called ‘point of sale’ advertising from shops should reduce teenage smoking rates – a policy backed up by a large amount of world-class research in respected peer-reviewed journals.
So we were surprised to see a new report appear recently, claiming that covering up tobacco displays in shops could actually increase youth smoking rates – and even tobacco smuggling. This report has been seized on by groups who want to encourage the government not to bring in the regulations outlined in the Health Act.
But on closer inspection, the report is riddled with problems – including the failure of the author to declare his long-standing links with the tobacco industry. The World Health Organisation says the tobacco industry has a “long history of using seemingly independent ‘front groups’ to advance its case.”
