Plain packaging of tobacco products has great potential to reduce the appeal of smoking, particularly among young people, and should be supported if Australians want to see death and disease from tobacco use continue to decline.
Simple, really. But unfortunately the facts have been difficult to read amid the smoke and mirrors, sound and fury. So consider this:
Fact: Glossy, stylised cigarette packets are a valuable marketing tool for attracting new smokers. This has been shown in Cancer Council research and dozens of other Australian and international studies, not to mention documents obtained from tobacco companies.
Fact: The tobacco industry is vehemently opposed to plain packaging. Surely this shows the industry also thinks plain packaging will reduce tobacco consumption?
Fact: The tobacco industry has fought against every policy measure aimed at reducing smoking rates in Australia over the past four decades – measures that have seen tobacco consumption halve in that time, translating to hundreds of thousands of Australians avoiding a premature death from one of the 14 fatal cancer types and other chronic diseases caused by smoking.
Yet here we go again. Same old arguments and misinformation. Most absurd is the claim that plain packaging will not work, while industry-funded retail groups say the expected drop in sales will put them out of business. Huh?
There was similarly confused spin when TV and radio ads for tobacco products were phased out in the 1970s. Ad bans would not work, yet simultaneously they would send businesses broke. Hindsight shows that the bans coincided with a substantial drop in smoking rates – just as behavioural and marketing research predicted they would. Similar analyses point to further reductions in smoking if plain packaging is introduced.
When tobacco sponsorship of Australian sports was also phased out, we were told tobacco consumption would not be affected but Australian sports would die. So what happened? Smoking rates declined further when tobacco was no longer synonymous with major sports. (Remember the Benson and Hedges’ cricket series and rugby league’s Winfield Cup?) And major sporting codes in Australia have since expanded.
For those who say enough’s enough, that tobacco control has been “done” in Australia, a few more facts. Nothing comes close to smoking as a preventable cause of death in Australia. Despite the risks, almost one in five Australians smoke every day. And almost one in five Australian year 12 students smoke every week. While this figure has declined in recent years, it is still alarmingly high when you consider the likelihood that many weekly teenage smokers will become addicted long-term – and that half of them will die prematurely for no other reason.
Plain packaging will eliminate the pack’s capacity to connect with a perceived sense of identity in the young smoker – the tough Marlboro man, the blokey Winfield user, the glamorous Vogue smoker and so on. And false impressions about reduced harm brands communicated through the pack – shown in a large international study to deceive one in five smokers – would also become a thing of the past.
As for banning tobacco instead of restricting advertising, contemplate the practicalities of suddenly outlawing a highly addictive product that has been legally available for centuries and is used daily by three million Australians. Unfeasible.
We need more of what has worked so well to reduce smoking prevalence over the past 35 years – and restrictions to how tobacco is marketed have been among the most effective measures.
If Federal Parliament passes the plain packaging bill, in a few years the sound and fury will be long forgotten and the sight of a glossy cigarette packet will seem as odd as those old TV ads for tobacco products that have long become a historical curiosity. And Australia will have taken another strong step towards eliminating the tragically avoidable disease and early death caused by smoking.
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RT @avgaunz: @drpiotrowski @ThePunchHQ really interesting article! Although we offer email and phone support, we still receive the odd letter too...
This is so clever. Lunch bags that look like they have mould on them to stop co-workers stealing your sandwich http://t.co/v7iMSkRh
This'll be good. Makers of the f@*^ing scariest Australian movie of all time to talk how they made it http://t.co/P9c4wzvL#snowtown#film
One must absolutely read this as soon as is snootily possible (it's about the mad family sueing Geelong Grammar) http://t.co/YnWgqcfi
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