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Scotland

Plain tobacco packaging

http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Plain-tobacco-packaging-14da.aspx

Response to UK announcement on standardised packs

The Scottish Government today re-emphasised its intention introduce plain cigarette packaging.

The UK Government yesterday (21 January) announced it would lay regulations for standardised packaging of tobacco products before May 2015 allowing law to come into force in May 2016.

Scottish Ministers have long been committed to plain packaging and will now work with the UK Government to support this outcome.

Welcoming the UK Government’s long awaited decision Maureen Watt, Minister for Public Health, said:

“Here in Scotland we have called for action on this issue for a long time, with the Health Secretary writing once again to the Secretary of State for Health last week, making our support for plain packaging absolutely clear.

“Our position has always been that this move will be an important step in tackling tobacco related disease. It is a bold step, but to build a generation free from tobacco, it is necessary to restrict the imagery and design that is used to encourage people – in particular young people – to use these addictive and lethal products.

“Tobacco use comes at great cost, not only for our NHS but also our families and communities. Each year more than 13,000 people in Scotland die as a result of tobacco use. Around the same number of young people take up smoking each year. That is why we must continue to take bold steps, such as plain packaging, to achieve our vision of a tobacco-free Scotland by 2034.

“While it has taken the UK Government a considerable period of time to follow our lead on this important issue, we now look forward to receiving the final regulations to agree and will continue to support effective regulation and implementation across Scotland and rest of UK.”

Background
• A Legislative Consent Motion was agreed by the Scottish Parliament in 2014 to allow the UK Government to legislate in Scotland on this matter, with the final details to be agreed in due course.
• A UK wide consultation on draft regulations ran in summer 2014
• Standardised packaging involves regulating the design characteristics of tobacco packaging (e.g. the branding, colouring, typography, size, shape and method of opening), so that tobacco products must be sold in a standardised form of packaging.
• Standardised Packaging has been one of a number of measures introduced in
Australia at a time when smoking rates have fallen.

Since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, it has overseen:
• Legislation to ban tobacco advertising in 2002
• The first UK nation to ban smoking in public places, in 2006
• Increased age for tobacco sales from 16 to 18 in 2007
• Implementation of the most robust tobacco display regulations in the UK. In force in large shops from 2013 and small shops from 2015.
• Banned tobacco vending machines in April 2013.
• Establishment of the only Tobacco retail Register in the UK in 2011
• Comprehensive awareness-raising campaigns
• Third country in the world to announce an ambitious tobacco-free target. Our 2013 Strategy, Creating a Tobacco-Free Generation, set out our vision for a tobacco-free Scotland (less than 5% prevalence) by 2034.
• First country in the UK to commit to implementing Standardised Packaging for tobacco products.
• Set a target to reduce the proportion of children in Scotland exposed to second-hand smoke in the home from 12 per cent to six per cent by 2020 – potentially saving 50,000 children from exposure to harmful smoke.

FCTC Letter on Consideration of Petition PE1580

Download (PDF, 498KB)

No place to hide: two pilot studies assessing the effectiveness of adding a health warning to the cigarette stick

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24335476

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To examine whether health warnings printed onto the cigarette stick would increase intentions to quit.

METHODS:

Two experiments with smokers were conducted. The first study was conducted in Scotland on 88 adult (aged 18 or over) smokers recruited around two university campuses. The second study was conducted on 120 adult (aged 16 or over) smokers recruited around inner city cafes in Greece. Study 1 tested smokers’ ratings of the attractiveness of cigarettes printed with either ‘minutes of life lost’ (minute condition) or ‘toxic constituents’ (toxic condition) against a control cigarette as well as the change in participants’ pre-exposure and postexposure quitting intentions. Study 2 only assessed the effect of the minute condition on smokers’ change in quitting intentions. Analysis of variance and paired-samples t tests were undertaken. Participants in Study 1 were shown a picture of the stimuli, with participants in Study 2 given the actual cigarette to hold.

RESULTS:

The analyses revealed increases in quitting intentions postexposure for the minute condition (mean paired difference=0.68, p<0.001) and the toxic condition (mean paired difference=0.23, p<0.05) in Study 1. Similar findings were found for the minute condition (mean paired difference=0.38, p<0.001) in Study 2.

CONCLUSIONS:

These results suggest that printing a public health warning on the cigarette stick may result in higher intentions to quit smoking. However, many other messages (eg, benefits of quitting, harmful effects of secondhand smoke) which can be printed on the cigarette stick have not been tested in the current studies.

Young adult women smokers’ response to using plain cigarette packaging: a naturalistic approach

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23512839

Abstract

OBJECTIVES:

To explore young adult women smokers’ cognitive and emotional response to using dark brown ‘plain’ cigarette packs in natural settings and whether plain packaging is associated with any short-term change in smoking behaviour.

DESIGN:

A naturalistic approach. Participants used plain cigarette packs provided to them for 1 week and for 1 week their own fully branded packs, but otherwise smoked and socialised as normal. Participants completed questionnaires twice a week.

SETTING:

The six most populated cities and towns in Scotland.

PARTICIPANTS:

301 young women smokers were recruited, with a final sample of 187 (62.1%). To meet the inclusion criteria women had to be between the ages of 18 and 35, daily cigarette smokers and provide a breath sample to confirm smoking status.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES:

Pack perceptions and feelings, feelings about smoking, salience and perceptions of health warnings and avoidant and cessation behaviours.

RESULTS:

In comparison to fully branded packaging, plain packaging was associated with more negative perceptions and feelings about the pack and about smoking (p<0.001). No significant overall differences in salience, seriousness or believability of health warnings were found between the pack types, but participants reported looking more closely at the warnings on plain packs and also thinking more about what the warnings were telling them (p<0.001). Participants reported being more likely to engage in avoidant behaviours, such as hiding or covering the pack (p<0.001), and cessation behaviours, such as foregoing cigarettes (p<0.05), smoking less around others (p<0.001), thinking about quitting (p<0.001) and reduced consumption (p<0.05), while using the plain packs. Results did not differ by dependence level or socioeconomic status.

CONCLUSIONS:

No research design can capture the true impacts of plain packaging prior to its introduction, but this study suggests that plain packaging may help reduce cigarette consumption and encourage cessation in the short term.