Make ciggie packs dull – experts
By Tamara McLean – March 14, 2008 01:32pm – Article from: AAP
CIGARETTES should be sold in dull, homogenous packs stamped only with a brand name and a health warning, a major review by leading Australian public health researchers says.
The report published in the international journal Addiction reveals the full extent to which tobacco companies treasure glitzy packs as their most powerful marketing tool.
“They are quite open about it,” say Professor Simon Chapman and Becky Freeman from the University of Sydney, who trawled through previously private internal tobacco industry documents and trade magazines.
“Now that the law prevents them from advertising, the main game is now via the pack.
“Pack design is now the leading edge of making tobacco products attractive and interesting, particularly to young starters.”
The specialists called for all cigarettes to be sold in plain cardboard packs marked only with the brand and the standard health warnings.
“Prescription drugs are all sold in plain packaging without alluring colours and imagery,” said Prof Chapman, who has been awarded the World Health Organisation (WHO) medal for tobacco control.
“These promote health. Cigarettes kill half their users and should be made as unattractive as possible.”
He said plain packaging may seem a radical policy today, but the same was once said about banning tobacco advertising, sports sponsorship and banning smoking in workplaces.
The change would be possible with federal government endorsement, an extension of the large and now grisly pack warnings.
“Not one cent has been paid by any government to compensate any company for loss of trade mark,” Prof Chapman said.
“International law is plain on this: governments can over-ride all arguments about the sanctity of trade marks and branding by invoking public health concerns.”
The WHO recently forecasted that one billion people will die from tobacco-caused disease this century.
Anne Jones, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said anti-smoking lobby groups had long backed a move to plain packaging.
“This is an addictive lethal product that is causing 15,000 thousand deaths a year, and the fact that we still glamorise the packaging is terrible,” Ms Jones said.