Australia hails plain packaging on tobacco
Measure meets health objectives and deters young from taking up smoking, says review
Source: FT
by: Jamie Smyth in Sydney
May 4, 2016
When Australia introduced plain packaging for tobacco products in December 2012, the industry funded an advertising campaign warning that smuggling would shoot up, retailers would go broke and the government would have to pay out millions in damages.
A little more three years later, and on the eve of the introduction in the UK of non-branded packs carrying prominent health warnings, Australia says the plain packaging experiment is working well.
“The measure has begun to achieve its public health objectives of reducing smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke in Australia and it is expected to continue to do so into the future,” concluded the government’s post-implementation report published in February.
The review said plain packaging and the enlarging of graphic health warnings on packs resulted in a “statistically significant” decline in smoking prevalence of 0.55 percentage points.
It accounted for a quarter of the 2.2-point decline in average smoking rates among Australians from 19.4 per cent to 17.2 per cent between the 34 months before plain packaging’s introduction and the 34 months afterwards.
“This reduction alone would result in at least 118,000 fewer smokers,” said Mike Daube, professor of health policy at Curtin University. But plain packaging was never seen as a magic bullet to stop people smoking, he added. Rather it was intended to deter young people from taking it up in the first place.
The report cited several studies that claim plain packaging is having a positive impact – reducing the appeal of tobacco products and the potential for packaging to mislead people, and enhancing the effectiveness of the health warnings.
It also references a big drop in consumption of tobacco products, down more than 20 per cent between the end of December 2012 and December 2015, while acknowledging limitations in the data and the short time that has passed since plain packaging has been in force.
The big tobacco companies and lobbyists dispute the findings of the government’s review, saying the evidence suggests smoking prevalence rates have not deviated from a historical downward trend.
Big tobacco has commissioned research that contradicts the findings of the review and is funding the Dominican Republic’s legal challenge to plain packaging at the World Trade Organisation. This challenge says the plain packaging measures “do not and will not change smoking behaviour in Australia”.
British American Tobacco said: “Australia remains the only country to date to have introduced plain packaging – and despite three years’ worth of data, is still no closer to demonstrating that plain packaging works to reduce smoking levels.
“Governments are ignoring the evidence that it does not work to reduce smoking levels – and this is why we are challenging the policy in the UK in the High Court of England and Wales.”
Plain packaging in the UK is due to come into effect on May 20, with the High Court set to rule on the legal challenge two days earlier.
The UK, France and Ireland have passed legislation to introduce plain packaging on May 20.
Dr Tasneem Chipty, who wrote the report, said smoking had indeed been falling in Australia for some time but added that the decline she had measured took this into account and was “beyond historical trend”.
“Suggestions?.?that the observed decline in smoking prevalence would have happened anyway, in the absence of plain packaging, are simply false,” she said.
So far the tobacco industry has lost challenges to Australia’s plain packaging law in the courts.
The last big hurdle for the law is the WTO, which is hearing complaints from Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Cuba. Those countries claim plain packaging violates WTO agreements by creating an unnecessary barrier to trade and by impeding the use of trademarks.
Tobacco companies also argue there is no evidence to suggest a link between the appeal of packs and smoking rates. They attribute any fall-off in tobacco consumption in Australia since December 2012 to increases in excise duty and other health education policies.
They also cite a KPMG study funded by the tobacco industry showing the consumption of illicit tobacco in Australia has risen to 14 per cent of the overall market from 11.5 per cent in 2012.
Proponents of the policy reject these arguments, saying big tobacco has spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying against the measure is because it poses such a threat to their profits.
“Right from the beginning, plain packaging was the component of our anti-tobacco policies that the industry screamed the loudest about,” says Nicola Roxon, the former Labor party health minister who steered plain packaging legislation through the Australian parliament.
“It is no surprise that its effectiveness and the fact it is spreading around the world has them so worried.”
Ireland, France and New Zealand are among several countries committed to following Australia and the UK in introducing plain packaging.
Mr Daube says the industry is merely repeating the claims it made in Australia in its campaigns against plain packaging in the UK and elsewhere. “These arguments failed in Australia and they should not be allowed to become zombie arguments – killed off in one country only to be brought back to life in others,” he says.
“Plain packaging is the tobacco industry’s worst nightmare as it takes away their last marketing opportunity.”
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EU’s highest court upholds tougher cigarette packet rules
Tobacco companies must cover two-thirds of box with health warnings
Source: FT
by: Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Paul McClean in London
May 4, 2016
The European Court of Justice has upheld new EU regulations that require tobacco companies to cover two-thirds of cigarette packets with health warnings, stating that the rules are “appropriate and necessary” to reduce smoking.
The EU’s highest court also upheld the bloc’s new restrictions on ecigarettes, thereby approving the first major attempt to regulate one of the tobacco industries’ few growth markets. The rules would lower the amount of nicotine allowed in the vaping devices and require smaller refill containers.
Poland had challenged the regulations and particularly objected to a ban on menthol cigarettes. Warsaw had argued that Polish citizens’ heavy use of flavoured tobacco meant that it should be treated as a traditional national product – much like snus, a Swedish chewing tobacco exempt from EU tobacco rules.
But the court ruled on Wednesday that the regulations, which are set to go into effect later this month, protected human health and met the bloc’s obligations under UN tobacco agreements. “The court considers that the prohibition is such as to protect consumers against the risks associated with tobacco use and does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve the objective pursued,” it said in a statement.
Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EU’s health commissioner, said the ruling reinforced Brussels’ determination to make public health a driving factor in its policymaking. “This is a very important ruling, confirming once again the fundamental principle enshrined in the EU law – the high level of health protection prevails over the profit?.?from trading a product that kills people,” he said.
The rules require cigarette companies to cover 65 per cent of the front and back of packets with photos and warnings on their top edges. Half of the side panels must include health warnings, such as “smoking kills – quit now” or “tobacco smoke contains over 70 substances known to cause cancer”.
The rules also allow individual EU countries to go even further, for example by demanding “plain packaging” that would see a standardised pack used by all cigarette brands. Australia already requires plain packaging and, within the EU, the UK, France and Ireland are in the process of introducing similar rules.
Alison Cooper, chief executive of tobacco group Imperial Brands, said she was “disappointed that a more sensible decision had not been taken”. However, she added that the company had anticipated the ruling and did not expect it to impact on profits.
Measure meets health objectives and deters young from taking up smoking, says review.
“Commercially, we are very capable of operating”, Ms Cooper said, pointing to the company’s growth in profit in Australia after similar legislation was introduced there.
The European Court of Justice found that the two-tiered regulatory structure – the EU’s rules for ecigarettes are far less restrictive than those for traditional tobacco – was appropriate given the different health risks of the products. Ecigarettes deliver nicotine through vaporising liquid rather than by burning tobacco.
A notification scheme, under which companies must notify national authorities when they introduce new ecigarette products to the market, was deemed only minimally invasive given how much remains unknown about the product.
“Submitting electronic cigarettes to a notification scheme does not seem manifestly inappropriate or manifestly beyond what is necessary to attain the objective pursued by the EU legislature,” the court said.
Deborah Arnott, head of the London-based antismoking group Action on Smoking and Health, said the ruling should help clear the way for the UK’s plain packaging policy to be implemented. The policy is due to come into effect on May 20, but the cigarette-maker British American Tobacco is challenging the legislation in the UK’s High Court and a decision is expected later this month.