ASH Daily News for 03 October 2008

Anti Smoking shock campaign

Click on the link below to view a CNN video on UK's new picture warnings.  

http://tinyurl.com/3oq39o

Source: CNN, 02 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3oq39o

Australia research into plain packaging

This month in Rio de Janeiro, the global tobacco industry's annual conference features a special session on what many are seeing as its Armageddon: plain, generic packaging. All packs are identical except for the brand name, printed in standard font. No colours, no logos, no box variations. Nothing but the brand and the health warning.

The British Government has released a consultation paper on the idea. Morgan Stanley advised its clients recently that "homogenous packaging" would "significantly restrict the industry's ability to promote their products". Tobacco Journal International, the industry's main trade journal, had as its latest cover story a warning: "Plain packaging can kill your business." That's the whole idea, ladies and gentlemen.

The World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, now ratified by 160 nations, is rapidly accelerating a long overdue regulation of the tobacco industry. Plain packaging has not happened in any nation yet, but the race is on. Here is why it is the most important next step in reducing Australia's leading cause of death.

When you take a doctor's prescription to a pharmacy for a drug designed to prolong life, relieve pain or symptoms or in some way promote health, radically different things happen than when you buy a packet of cigarettes.

First, the pharmaceutical company making the drug will have spent a small fortune trialling it to see if it does what it is meant to do - such as act as an effective contraceptive or lower blood pressure - and that it does not cause adverse reactions that are so severe as to radically alter the cost-benefit ratio of the drug (for example, chemotherapy for cancer often causes nausea but may prolong life).

Tobacco companies, by contrast, have to meet no standards for their products and can add any legal substance that will, for example, get nicotine to your brain faster or mask the astringent, choking sensation of smoke. While Philip Morris once withdrew its salmonella-contaminated Kraft peanut butter from shops because it might have harmed customers, it is relaxed and comfortable about half of its best customers dying from using its tobacco products in the intended way.

In the pharmacy, prescribed drugs are not on open display but stored in the dispensary. Until now, cigarettes have been on open display, sending the message that they are profoundly ordinary products, no different from sweets, soft drinks and groceries.

The final difference between tobacco and prescribed drugs is packaging. When you pick up your next prescription, check out the plain, dull box. It is not designed to express the product's "personality" or to confer prestige or some other desirable attribute in the user. It simply states the drug's name, dosage and any contraindications. Tobacco products, by contrast, are the result of ongoing market testing to ensure they are as attractive and beguiling as possible, particularly to what the industry euphemistically calls "starters" or "young adult smokers".

Research released this week by Professor Melanie Wakefield, from the Cancer Council Victoria, shows how smokers feel about plain packaged cigarettes. When shown regular packaged brands and the dull, generic packs, the 813 smokers rated the dull packs as much less attractive and popular, and those who would smoke them as much less stylish, outgoing and mature than smokers of the original pack. They inferred that cigarettes from the plain packs would be less satisfying and of lower quality.

The federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, has repeatedly put prevention front and centre of national health policy. By making Australia lead the world - by taking a step that the history of tobacco control suggests is inevitable - she could start global dominoes tumbling, and save millions of lives. If the tobacco industry thinks plain packaging will kill its business, no stronger recommendation is available.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 02 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3ssxp5

Japan Tobacco starts petition against cigarette tax increase

Japan Tobacco Inc., the world's third largest publicly traded cigarette maker, will enlist customers in a campaign to stop the government from raising cigarette taxes. 

Consumers opposed to the proposal to increase retail cigarette prices by as much as threefold should fill in a petition at tobacco retailers, by mobile phone or on the Internet, the Tokyo based company, which is 50 percent owned by the government, said.

The campaign comes as the maker of Camel and Mild Seven cigarettes battles higher tobacco prices, a falling smoking rate and controls on vending-machine purchases that account for more than half its $31.4 billion in domestic tobacco sales. Lawmakers in June proposed raising taxes on cigarettes, which sell for less than a third of the U.K. price, to fund rising welfare costs.

"A tax increase could destroy Japan's tobacco industry,'' President Hiroshi Kimura told reporters in Tokyo. "It's unfair to increase tobacco tax to raise general revenue."

Higher taxes could quicken a decline in cigarette sales in Japan, where the percentage of men who smoke has fallen by half over the past 40 years to about 40 percent because of an increase in health consciousness. Japan Tobacco's operating income from cigarette sales in the country slid 9.4 percent to 222 billion yen ($2.1 billion) in the 12 months through March.

Japan Tobacco said it will submit its petition to the government after the campaign, which the company plans to end in December, in time for the Japanese government's internal discussions on proposed taxes.

Source: Bloomberg, 01 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3kcz5v

New Zealand: Smokefree campaign discourages youth smoking

A youth targeted smokefree campaign is discouraging young people from smoking according to new data released by Associate Health Minister Damien O'Connor.

The Health Sponsorship Council's 'Smoking Not Our Future' campaign promotes anti-smoking and positive quitting messages via celebrity testimonials and aims to challenge attitudes towards smoking among young people aged 12 to 24 years.

Of 939 respondents in an evaluation of the campaign, 74 percent agreed that the ads make smoking seem 'less cool' and 82 percent of those aged 12-14 years and 63 percent of those aged 15-17 years agreed that the adverts have put them off smoking.

"This campaign is ringing true for many young New Zealanders. If we can stop our young people from smoking then generations to come will be healthier and we will continue to see a downward spiral in the number of people who smoke," said Mr O'Connor.

One in four respondents reported knowing someone who has tried to quit smoking as a result of the campaign, and around half of young people who smoke reported that the adverts made them think they should try and quit. Priority audiences of the campaign, Maori and Pacific young people, also say the campaign challenges their attitudes towards smoking. 84 percent of Maori and 81 percent of Pacific young people agreed that the adverts have given them good reasons not to smoke.

Mr O'Connor said these figures go hand in hand with results from the 2007 Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Year 10 Survey which shows youth smoking rates dropped to 12.8 percent in 2007, down from 28.6 percent in 1999.

"It is in New Zealand's best interest to continue the momentum in the battle to combat smoking, which kills around 13 New Zealanders every day. There is still much work to be done. Tobacco control is a high priority for this government. In this year’s Budget we committed an additional $32 million over the next four years to make even greater reductions in smoking rates and in the number of teens taking up smoking.

“We must make even faster progress towards achieving our goal of a smokefree New Zealand, in turn ensuring more New Zealanders have the chance to live a healthy life,” Mr O’Connor said.

Source: Scoop, 29 September 2008  
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3tbeck

Scotland: Older smokers urged to stub out the habit

Older smokers are being targeted as part of a campaign by ASH Scotland.

The charity – an anti-smoking lobby group – has launched its Never Too Old To Quit initiative, issuing a number of facts to encourage people along the way.

The organisation pointed out that within the first hour of giving up tobacco poisons begin to leave the body, former smokers will have more energy, and the risk of a heart attack are halved after a year or two.

After between five and 15 years of non-smoking, the body has returned to its normal self.

Chief executive Sheila Duffy said: "Tobacco is an addictive substance and stopping smoking is not easy but, with the support of local stop-smoking services, I hope more people will kick the habit."

She added that graphic picture warnings on cigarette packets, due to come on the shelves this week, should also flag up blunt warnings to smokers.

Source: Scotsman, 03 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/4vfbp3