LONDON
— The British government took a step Thursday toward imposing a ban on
branding for cigarette packs, indicating that it was likely to go ahead
with sweeping new restrictions on the marketing of tobacco.
Until
late last year, the government appeared to oppose any requirement for
plain cigarette packaging, which is intended to make smoking less
attractive to young people, who might be tempted by the brand messages
of tobacco companies.
But
on Thursday, Jane Ellison, the under secretary for public health,
published the findings of an independent study on the issue, which found
that there was “enough evidence to say that standardized packaging is
very likely to contribute to a modest but important reduction in
smoking.”
Ms.
Ellison said she was inclined to proceed with laws to standardize
cigarette packaging and told lawmakers that if the rate of smoking by
children was reduced even 2 percent, 4,000 fewer children would take up
the habit each year.
She
said that, before proceeding, she would review any information that had
emerged since the last full public consultation in 2012 and that could
be “relevant to a final decision on this policy.”
Any
such law would give public health advocates a big lift by introducing
some of the toughest restrictions on tobacco sales in the world.
Australia requires plain packaging, and Ireland intends to eliminate
trademarks and logos on packs and to set rules on the size and
positioning of health warnings. All packs would be one neutral color,
with the brand name in the same uniform typeface.
New
restrictions across Europe will soon increase the size of mandatory
health warnings on cigarette packages. In February, the European
Parliament approved regulations to permit picture and text health
warnings that would cover 65 percent of the front and the back of the
packs, and 50 percent of their sides.
Countries inside the 28-nation bloc are permitted to go further if they wish.
The
report published Thursday was written by a prominent pediatrician,
Cyril Chantler. He said in a statement that research “cannot prove
conclusively” that any one measure would have an impact on curtailing
smoking, but he noted that even a moderate decline was important.
The
Labour Party criticized the British government for requiring a
consultation period instead of pressing ahead immediately with
legislation.
“How
many more children are going to take up smoking before this government
takes firm and decisive action?” said Luciana Berger, a spokeswoman on
public health issues for the opposition. “This is yet another example of
how this government is caving in to vested interests and standing up
for the wrong people.”
Some
opponents of the plan have argued that plain packaging would encourage
counterfeit cigarettes, but Dr. Chantler’s report rejected that idea. It
found “no evidence that standardized packaging is easier to
counterfeit, and indeed in Australia hardly any counterfeit standardized
packages have been found to date.”
The
report said that in Australia, the effect of the new rules, introduced
in 2012, on tobacco consumption was unclear and that the switchover
process might have distorted the statistics. Tobacco shipped to
retailers actually increased in volume by around 0.3 percent in 2013.
But cigarette sales in grocery stores fell by around 0.9 percent in the
same year, the report said, citing the Retail World trade magazine.
Mark
Littlewood, the director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a
research institute in London that favors free markets, said that the
British government should resist a rush to regulate.
“The
early evidence from Australia, where plain packs have been introduced,
suggests this policy has not had any impact on youth smoking rates — in
fact, overall smoking appears to have risen,” he said in a statement.
No comments:
Post a Comment