‘Ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship’ is
the theme of this year’s World No Tobacco Day according to the World
Health Organization (WHO) – a specialised United Nations agency
responsible for monitoring public health and also the pioneers of other
world health awareness days such as World AIDS Day and Blood Donor Day.
Therefore, ahead of tomorrow’s World No Tobacco Day, Ireland Health
Minister James Reilly has announced plans for the Republic of Ireland to
follow Australia’s lead and become only the second country to adopt
plain-packaging for cigarettes.
Australia became the world’s first
country to implement this innovative anti-smoking agenda back in
December 2012. The legislation forced all tobacco company logos to be
banned from packages and instead replaced by bland, dreary
green/brown-coloured packaging with unpleasant warning text and an
accompanying image designed to shock smokers into quitting smoking.
Dr Reilly spoke on Tuesday saying there had been government approval
for the go-ahead to abolish what he describes as a ‘mobile
advertisement’ for tobacco companies who he says use intelligent
marketing, with packet sizes, colour and style aimed at luring in
younger smokers, particularly girls.
“The introduction of standardised packaging will remove the final way
for tobacco companies to promote their deadly product in Ireland.
Cigarette packets will no longer be a mobile advertisement for the
tobacco industry”, he commented.
For Dr Reilly, the issue of smoking and what tragic health impacts it
can have is a subject close to home. The Health Minister revealed he
had witnessed first-hand the effects of tobacco after his brother died
of lung cancer and his father lost his sight following a stroke. Both
were smokers.
Dr Reilly also says that 5,200 people die in Ireland each year from
tobacco-related diseases. He said: “One in two of all smokers will die
from their addiction. I lost a brother who was a doctor, who understood
fully what the cigarettes did, who was so addicted he couldn’t give them
up. And my father was prematurely blind because of a stroke and spent
the last 14 years of his life without being able to see.”
The decision to press ahead with plain packaging was agreed by a
massive majority of the Cabinet on Tuesday and the aim is to make the
products look less appealing and health warnings more obvious and
alarming to smokers.
Minister Reilly says he is fully aware that tobacco companies will
try every trick in the book in an attempt to thwart a plan that could
potentially lose them a lot of money.
Unfortunately, not everyone thinks the idea of plain packaging is a
good move and some believe it will have little effect on its apparent
purpose – to reduce smoking rates.
The National Federation of Retail Newsagents Ireland President Joe
Sweeney says the only groups who will benefit from the Minister’s
announcement will be smugglers and criminals.
Mr Sweeney warned: “I support the government in its efforts to
curtail the use of tobacco and alcohol. In doing this though, it must
seek to find a balance between regulating harmful but legal, taxed
behaviour and driving consumers into the black market to buy illicit
products from criminals and subversives whose activities pose an even
greater threat to society. The Minister for Health is sticking his head
in the sand on policies towards the tobacco black market in Ireland
which are putting retailers out of business. At a time when at least one
in four cigarettes smoked in Ireland is illegal, the Minister’s failure
to address the growing criminal fuelled trade in tobacco products shows
a breath-taking lack of joined-up thinking.”
However, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Faculty of Public
Health Medicine spokesman Dr Fenton Howell welcomed the news, saying:
“Plain packaging will stop the tobacco industry from using the pack as a
marketing tool to mislead another generation of young people into
thinking that smoking is cool and fashionable, when in reality
cigarettes makes addicts of our children and condemns them to a life of
unnecessary illness and death 10-15 years ahead of time.”
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