Plain packaging for tobacco products
David Currow, Chief Cancer Officer, and Anita Dessaix, head of prevention, shared their views on how minimising the emotional attachments to a cigarette brand can help smokers quit in the British Medical Journal recently.
On 7 April 2011, the minister for health and ageing, Nicola
Roxon, introduced
legislation into the Australian parliament to mandate plain
packaging for all tobacco products in Australia. Australia is the
first jurisdiction to introduce such legislation, and-in keeping
with previous initiatives-the programme will be evaluated
prospectively to assess the contribution it makes to the
community's smoking rates.
Smoking rates in Australia have declined over the past three
decades as a result of progressively stronger tobacco control
measures and a concomitant change in behavioural norms (see box
below).
Plain packaging will enhance existing tobacco control policies
and programmes by further reducing the appeal of tobacco products
to smokers and increasing the effectiveness of pictorial health
warnings.
Cigarette packs are an important marketing vehicle because they
connect personal characteristics, social identity, and aspirations
to tobacco brands. Anything that can be done to minimise the
emotional attachment to a cigarette brand could help smokers to
quit their addictive habit.
Ultimately, the successful reduction of smoking across the
community will rely on people making informed decisions before they
start smoking alongside mechanisms that actively encourage smokers
to quit. Prohibition will not work, but changing cultural and
behavioural norms to smoking by changing its acceptability has
achieved outcomes that were thought impossible even 20 years ago.
Plain packaging is another logical step in reducing the appeal of
tobacco.
This is a summary of the article published in the British
Medical Journal.
Read the full article, including references, on the BMJ
website.
Previous initiatives to prevent smoking
- Ban on advertising (1973; television and radio) and phasing out
of tobacco sporting sponsorship (from 1988)
- Introduction of written (1973) and pictorial health warnings
(2006)
- Excise increases above the rate of inflation, which have
resulted in an estimated 3-6% reduction in demand for tobacco for
every 10% price increase.
- Public
education campaigns (from the 1980s)
- Increase in the numbers of smoke-free environments (indoor and
outdoor), smoke-free public transport (from mid-1970s), and ban on
smoking in cars carrying anyone under 16 years of age (from
2007)
- Enforcement of the prohibition of sales to minors (from
1990s)
- Removal of tobacco products from sight in retail outlets (from
2010)
- Introduction of subsidised nicotine replacement treatment for
all smokers (2011)
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