Will Plain Cigarette Packaging Deter Young People from Smoking?

Over the years campaigners have worked hard to reduce the impact of cigarette advertising.  We all, whether we smoke or not, understand the culture of glamour surrounding the sale of cigarette. We can see how attractive it can be to young people who feel tempted to try it out.   Maybe we started smoking at an early age because the colourful cigarette packet represented that first step to maturity.

Campaigners have already seen new laws in the United Kingdom which have resulted in the removal of vending machines  from streets, shops and pubs, the end of advertising on television and at the cinema  and the banning of tobacco displays in shops. 

Now the cigarette companies are making a last ditch attempt to fight European legislation from forcing them to put their cigarettes in plain packaging.   Such colourful and glamorous cigarette packaging is known as ‘the silent salesman’.

It cannot be denied that there is something seductive about cigarette packaging.  The manufacturers have spent years refining  their brand image to appeal to certain sections of the smoking public. A huge section of their advertising propaganda is aimed at children.

When I smoked, one of my favourite cigarettes were called Vogue and they were in a white packet with the word ‘Vogue’ casually swirled across the front of the packet with sophisticated flamboyance.  The cigarettes themselves were extremely long and slim and very  elegant.  I felt fabulous smoking them - and I was no kid!  I still think of them with nostalgia six years after breaking the habit. These ‘super slim’ cigarettes are specifically aimed at young women.

The British Heart Foundation has been campaigning to get the advertising off the cigarette packets.  They are concerned for the future health of the younger generation. 

They feel that plain packaging will make smoking less attractive, particularly to young people, by:

• Removing all logos and attractive colours from the packs.
• Making the health warnings more prominent.
• Ensuring that smokers aren't being misled about some  brands being less harmful than others.

 According to the Heart Foundation’s  Report, The Plain Truth: how tobacco plain packaging will save lives,

“Two thirds of today’s smokers started before the age of 18. Around 14 per cent of girls and 10 per cent of boys aged 15 years old smoke at least one cigarette every week. This remains for many a lifetime addiction, with often tragic consequences in adulthood.”

This Report shows how studies have confirmed that young people are very vulnerable to the enticements of glamorous and colourful cigarette packaging.    As a smoker’s cigarette packet is produced many times a day and is visible to whoever they  may be with or near at the time, it becomes a symbol of their  very selves,  making its colour, style and branding  particularly important to the user - especially if they are young.

Plain packaging would mean the standardised appearance of all cigarette packets.  There would be no promotional aspects whatsoever  but only plain colour, displaying the brand name but not the logos, colour schemes or graphics associated with that brand. There would still be the health warning required by law.

Australia has already taken the plunge.  

In November 2011 they passed  the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act and so became the first country to introduce plain packaging legislation. 

In the British Heart Foundation Report, when shown an example of the Australian plain packaging cigarette packet, 77 per cent of those polled by the British Heart Foundation felt that "the plain pack would encourage healthier behaviour. A majority of smokers felt the same, with 75 per cent of occasional smokers, and 67 per cent of regular smokers feeling the plain packs would encourage people to smoke less or quit.” 

Hopefully young people would never be tempted to start a habit which is so devastatingly difficult to give up.

Now the British Heart Foundation is urging the British government to close the last bastion of tobacco advertising by closing the packaging loophole.  They want the British government to:

• introduce a tobacco plain packaging bill into  Parliament, and
• seek amendments to the EU Tobacco Products Directive,  to enable large front-of-pack picture health warnings.

The Government is seriously considering introducing plain, standardised packaging in the United Kingdom. Once this becomes law, the next step is to introduce picture warnings on the front of the packs illustrating the effects of smoking on the body.

Every year 200,000 children and young people in England begin to smoke (Action on Smoking & Health).  For each of the 100,000 people that die or quit every year the tobacco companies are desperate to find others to take their place.   This is why they make their products so seductive.

Hopefully  this initial plain packaging of cigarette packets is almost with us - and that means a better chance of a long and healthy life for all  our young people. 

That is what they deserve - not the cynical manipulation of giant corporations.

 Source:

Action on Smoking & Health (ASH) - Young People & Smoking Fact Sheet, March 2013.

British Heart Foundation Report:  The Plain Truth: how tobacco plain packaging will save lives. To read the Report follow the link from here.

'Plea for plain packaging' Heart Matters, January/February 2013.