http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23405933?print=true

Plain cigarette packs ‘encourage smokers to quit’

Plain packaging of cigarettes was introduced in Australia last December

Related Stories

• Minister denies cigarette ‘U-turn’
• Plain packs for Australia smokers

Selling cigarettes in unbranded packs seems to make tobacco less appealing and encourages smokers to quit, suggests a study.

The work comes from Australia – the first country to introduce plain packaging.

The BMJ Open research looked at the impact of the policy on 536 smokers in the state of Victoria.

The findings come days after ministers were criticised for putting on hold a plan to impose plain packs in England.

Downing Street denied the Tories’ election strategist, Lynton Crosby, had been responsible for the delay to plain packaging.

Mr Crosby’s links with alcohol and tobacco companies have been called into question by some MPs.

“Start Quote

When cigarettes aren’t disguised by flashy packaging and carefully crafted branding, smokers see them for what they are – a lethal product which kills half of its long term users”

End Quote Kate Alley Cancer Research UK’s tobacco policy manager

Defending the decision to delay, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the government wanted more time to see how the policy had worked in Australia.

The BMJ Open study gives an early indication of precisely this.

Researchers polled a sample of smokers during November 2012 when plain packs were already available in the run up to the country-wide introduction of the legislation.

Almost three out of four (72.3%) were smoking cigarettes from plain packs while the remainder (27.7%) were still using branded packs with smaller health warnings.

Compared with branded pack smokers, smokers using plain packs were 66% more likely to think their cigarettes were poorer quality than a year ago and they were 70% more likely to say they found them less satisfying.

They were also 81% more likely to have thought about quitting at least once a day during the previous week.

And plain pack smokers were 51% more likely to back the plain pack policy than were brand pack smokers.

Kate Alley, Cancer Research UK’s tobacco policy manager, said: “This new evidence from Australia confirms what we already know, selling cigarettes in standardised packs makes smoking less appealing and encourages smokers to quit.

“When cigarettes aren’t disguised by flashy packaging and carefully crafted branding, smokers see them for what they are – a lethal product which kills half of its long term users.”

She said ministers should “stop stalling” and introduce standardised packs in the UK as soon as possible, adding that 85% of the British public wanted government action to reduce the number of children who smoke.

Simon Gillespie, of the British Heart Foundation, said: “These are clear-cut findings about how existing smokers have reacted to the changes in Australia. Westminster has absolutely no excuse for delaying legislation to introduce standardised packaging.”

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “We take very seriously the potential for standardised packaging to reduce smoking rates, but in light of the differing views, we have decided to wait until the emerging impact of the decision in Australia can be measured, and then we will make a decision in England.

“This decision is an important one and whilst we keep it under review, we’ll be continuing to implement our existing plan to reduce smoking rates through ending the display of tobacco in all shops, running national behaviour change campaigns to encourage smokers to quit and through supporting local authorities to provide effective stop smoking services.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tobacco-industry-told-government-it-was-too-early-to-tell-if-plain-cigarette-packaging-would-work–six-months-later-ministers-agreed-8711725.html

Tobacco industry told Government it was too early to tell if plain cigarette packaging would work – six months later ministers agreed

Nigel Morris

Deputy Political Editor

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Email

Related articles

· Ed Miliband lambasts Tory adviser Lynton Crosby for ‘devastating conflict of interest’ over cigarette packaging

· You caved in to tobacco industry pressure: protesters accuse Government as plan for plain cigarette packaging is shelved

· Leading article: No escaping the dangers of tobacco

· Investigations prize for tobacco exposé

· Australian health minister Tanya Plibersek adds fuel to Lynton Crosby row over cigarette packaging

A major tobacco firm told the Government it was too early to assess whether selling cigarettes in plain packets would deter smokers – six months before ministers deployed the same argument.

In a meeting with Department of Health officials, representatives of Philip Morris International (PMI) said there was “limited evidence” as yet on the success of a similar policy in Australia.

Last week the Government infuriated health campaigners by delaying a decision on whether to introduce plain packets in England. It explained it needed more time to assess the evidence from Australia, but Labour claimed its announcement followed pressure from the Tory election adviser, Lynton Crosby, whose lobbying firm is employed by Philip Morris.

Minutes of a meeting between company executives and civil servants were released yesterday by the Department of Health following a freedom-of-information request. They state: “PMI said that there is limited evidence from Australia as to what the effect of standardised packaging so far, largely due to the short period of time since its introduction.”

On BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, presenter Eddie Mair quoted the words back at Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, and asked if he agreed.

Mr Hunt said it was “correct” that he did not disagree with the assessment – before being told it was a direct quote from the tobacco firm during its discussions with his department.

Noble sentiments about individual liberty are being used to bend democracy to the will of the tobacco industry

Follow George Monbiot^Beta

·

• • George Monbiot
  • The Guardian, Monday 15 July 2013 20.39 BST

‘Lynton Crosby personifies the new ­dispensation, in which men and women glide between corporations and ­politics, and appear to act as agents for big ­business within government.’ Photograph: David Hartley / Rex Features

It’s a victory for the hidden persuaders, the astroturfers, sock puppets, purchased scholars and corporate moles. On Friday the government announced that it will not oblige tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packaging. How did it happen? The public was overwhelmingly in favour. The evidence that plain packets will discourage young people from smoking is powerful. But it fell victim to a lobbying campaign that was anything but plainly packaged.

Tobacco companies are not allowed to advertise their products. Nor, as they are so unpopular, can they appeal directly to the public. So they spend their cash on astroturfing (fake grassroots campaigns) and front groups. There is plenty of money to be made by people unscrupulous enough to take it.

Much of the anger about this decision has been focused on Lynton Crosby. Crosby is David Cameron’s election co-ordinator. He also runs a lobbying company that works for the cigarette firms Philip Morris and British American Tobacco. He personifies the new dispensation, in which men and women glide between corporations and politics, and appear to act as agents for big business within government. The purpose of today’s technocratic politics is to make democracy safe for corporations: to go through the motions of democratic consent while reshaping the nation at their behest.

But even if Crosby is sacked, the infrastructure of hidden persuasion will remain intact. Nor will it be affected by the register of lobbyists that David Cameron will announce on Tuesday, antiquated before it is launched.

Nanny state, health police, red tape, big government: these terms have been devised or popularised by corporate front groups. The companies who fund them are often ones that cause serious harm to human welfare. The front groups campaign not only against specific regulations, but also against the very principle of the democratic restraint of business.

I see the “free market thinktanks” as the most useful of these groups. Their purpose, I believe, is to invest corporate lobbying with authority. Mark Littlewood, the head of one of these thinktanks – the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) – has described plain packaging as “the latest ludicrous move in the unending, ceaseless, bullying war against those who choose to produce and consume tobacco”. Over the past few days he’s been in the media repeatedly, railing against the policy. So do the IEA’s obsessions just happen to coincide with those of the cigarette firms? The IEA refuses to say who its sponsors are and how much they pay. But as a result of persistent digging, we now know that British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International have been funding the institute – in BAT’s case since 1963. British American Tobacco has admitted that it gave the institute £20,000 last year and that it’s “planning to increase our contribution in 2013 and 2014“.

Otherwise it’s a void. The IEA tells me, “We do not accept any earmarked money for commissioned research work from any company.” Really? But whether companies pay for specific publications or whether they continue to fund a body that – by the purest serendipity – publishes books and pamphlets that concur with the desires of its sponsors, surely makes no difference.

The institute has almost unrivalled access to the BBC and other media, where it promotes the corporate agenda without ever being asked to disclose its interests. Because they remain hidden, it retains a credibility its corporate funders lack. Amazingly, since 2011 Mark Littlewood has also been the government’s adviser on cutting the regulations that business doesn’t like. Corporate conflicts of interest intrude into the heart of this country’s political life.

In 2002, a letter sent by the philosopher Roger Scruton to Japan Tobacco International (which manufactures Camel, Winston and Silk Cut) was leaked. In the letter, Professor Scruton complained that the £4,500 a month JTI was secretly paying him to place pro-tobacco articles in newspapers was insufficient: could they please raise it to £5,500?

Scruton was also working for the Institute of Economic Affairs, through which he published a major report attacking the World Health Organisation for trying to regulate tobacco. When his secret sponsorship was revealed, the IEA pronounced itself shocked: shocked to find that tobacco funding is going on in here. It claimed that “in the past we have relied on our authors to come forward with any competing interests, but that is going to change … we are developing a policy to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” Oh yes? Eleven years later I have yet to find a declaration in any IEA publication that the institute (let alone the author) has been taking money from companies with an interest in its contents.

The IEA is one of several groups that appear to be used as a political battering ram by tobacco companies. On the TobaccoTactics website you can find similarly gruesome details about the financial interests and lobbying activities of, for example, the Adam Smith Institute and the Common Sense Alliance.

Even where tobacco funding is acknowledged, only half the story is told. Forest, a group that admits that “most of our money is donated by UK-based tobacco companies”, has spawned a campaign against plain packaging called Hands Off Our Packs. The Department of Health has published some remarkable documents, alleging the blatant rigging of signatures on a petition launched by this campaign. Hands Off Our Packs is run by Angela Harbutt. She lives with Mark Littlewood.

Libertarianism in the hands of these people is a racket. All those noble sentiments about individual liberty, limited government and economic freedom are nothing but a smokescreen, a disguised form of corporate advertising. Whether Mark Littlewood, Lynton Crosby or David Cameron articulate it, it means the same thing: ideological cover for the corporations and the very rich.

Arguing against plain packaging on the Today programme, Mark Field MP, who came across as the transcendental form of an amoral, bumbling Tory twit, recited the usual tobacco company talking points, with their usual disingenuous disclaimers. In doing so, he made a magnificent slip of the tongue. “We don’t want to encourage young people to take up advertising … er, er, to take up tobacco smoking.” He got it right the first time.

Twitter: @georgemonbiot

A fully referenced version of this article can be found at Monbiot.com

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/15/cigarette-packaging-corporate-smokescreen-liberty