Today marks the World Health Organisation‘s (WHO) World No Tobacco Day – an annual event that has taken place since 1988.

This year, the theme is about sending a message to governments to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Tobacco advertising was banned in the UK many years ago but the sad fact is that only 19 countries – representing just six per cent of the world’s population – have comprehensive national bans.

This is despite the fact that the WHO international Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) – a treaty that’s been signed by 168 countries worldwide – requires a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

Although the theme changes every year, the devastating reason for World No Tobacco Day remains the same:

Tobacco kills nearly six million people each year, of which more than 600,000 are non-smokers dying from breathing second-hand smoke

In this post, we explore recent international developments in the fight against tobacco. And we ask whether the UK is still ‘Setting the Standard’ for the rest of the world to follow, after a decade of significant progress in tobacco control.

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Children are lured by tobacco packaging

Next Wednesday, in a ceremony full of tradition and colour, the Queen marks the formal start of the parliamentary year.

This will include a speech that sets out the government’s agenda for the coming session, outlining proposed policies and legislation.

We’ve been urging the government to seize this opportunity to replace the slickly designed tobacco packaging with packs of uniform size, shape and colour.

But we’re very concerned by today’s newspaper reports that the government is backing away from including legislation in the speech.

We believe it’s a grave mistake to allow the current situation to continue.

The public consultation on the future of tobacco packaging closed in August 2012 and we’ve been impatiently waiting since then to hear what this government will do about this issue.

Impatiently waiting because every day the government delays taking action sees more than 500 under 16s being lured into smoking, an addiction that will kill half of all long term smokers.

Tens of thousands of our supporters have added their voice to our campaign to protect children from tobacco industry marketing, so we know the public backs this measure. 

The evidence shows plain, standardised packs reduce the appeal of smoking, and experts from across the fields of health and law enforcement are fully behind the move.

You might wonder who could possibly oppose this measure. The answer is simple – the group with the most to lose, the tobacco industry and the groups they fund.

Because fewer smokers mean lower profits and less money in the bank for the industry.

If this government doesn’t act, the tobacco industry will get the green light to continue targeting our children with sophisticated and slick designs.

You may have also seen this Japan Tobacco International (JTI) ad popping up in national newspapers recently, part of the £2million advertising campaign that JTI are waging against the introduction of plain packaging.

Click to enlarge

We’ve written before about misleading and unsubstantiated ads from JTI, which have been banned by the Advertising Standards Agency.

When the tobacco industry is desperate enough to spend so much money on misleading the public, we know we must be on the right path. Private Eye magazine published its own spoof version of the above JTI ad, which we thought was too good not to share:

Reproduced by kind permission of PRIVATE EYE magazine www.private-eye.co.uk

Indeed… we couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Alan

• For more information visit our campaign website – Setting the Standard for cigarette packaging. 

JTI advert that appeared in several national newspapers this month

As we revealed last week, almost two thirds (65 per cent) of the public don’t trust the tobacco industry to make believable and independent arguments about how to reduce smoking rates.

This is particularly relevant at the moment. The public health community – over 190 health and welfare organisations, including Cancer Research UK – is calling for the government to introduce plain, standardised tobacco packaging to protect children from tobacco marketing.

But the tobacco industry – and its funded groups – continue to oppose the measure, despite clear evidence that standard packs make cigarettes less attractive to children.

As the campaign intensifies, with the appearance of a new series of national press ads, it’s worth looking at how the tobacco industry’s opposition has panned out so far, and how it’s built such a dire reputation.

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