Package Warnings Update
Cigarette pack health warnings 'could encourage people to keep smoking' Cigarette packets with serious health warnings could actually encourage people to continue smoking, research suggests. By Chris Irvine 09 Dec 2009 Death-related warnings may actually encourage smokers to keep up their habit Photo: PA According to a study, smokers who are continunally confronted with warnings that cigarettes kill actually develop coping mechanisms to justify continuing their habit. Comparatively, if smokers are shown warnings suggesting the habit could make them unattractive, they are more likely to give up. Teenagers who took up the habit to impress or fit in with their peers were more likely to be influenced by warnings about their appearance, the study found. "In general, when smokers are faced with death-related anti-smoking messages on cigarette packs, they produce active coping attempts as reflected in their willingness to continue the risky smoking behaviour," the study said. "To succeed with anti-smoking messages on cigarette packs one has to take into account that considering their death may make people smoke." The study from the United States, Switzerland and Germany, led by Jochim Hansen of New York University and the University of Basel, asked 39 psychology students who said they were smokers, aged between 17 -41. Participants filled in a questionnaire determining how much their smoking was based on self-esteem, before being shown cigarette packets with different warnings on them. Half of them read warnings such as "Smoking leads to deadly lung cancer", while the other half had warnings about attractiveness. After a 15-minute delay the students were asked more questions about their smoking behaviour and if they intended to quit. The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, found that cigarette packets with death-related warnings were not effective and even caused more positive smoking attitudes. "On the other hand, warning messages that were unrelated to death effectively reduced smoking attitudes the more recipients based their self-esteem on smoking. "This finding can be explained by the fact that warnings such as 'Smoking brings you and the people around you severe damage' and 'Smoking makes you unattractive' may be particularly threatening to people who believe the opposite, namely that smoking allows them to feel valued by others or to boost their positive self-image." A Department of Health spokesman said: “Health warnings on tobacco packaging have played an important role in helping smokers understand the risks of tobacco use and where to get help to quit. Research from around the world has shown that different people react to different types of messages to motivate them to attempt to quit. “In October 2008, the UK was the first nation in the European U nion to introduce graphic picture warnings to cigarette packets that showed smokers the grim reality of the effects smoking can have on their health. We are now currently working with the European Commission to develop new pictorial warnings for tobacco packaging, including testing different types of messages with smokers.” Read
I have a basic human right to look at fag packets 4th June 2008 Claire Fox says that plans to ‘denormalise’ smoking by removing cigarettes from display infantilises adults and imposes upon us a dubious official version of what is ‘normal’ Has your personal life been ‘denormalised’ yet? Mine is about to be, and believe me it’s not pleasant. The health ministries in Scotland and Westminster have just announced plans to make a perfectly legal habit seem as abnormal as possible. The SNP’s Public Health Minister Shona Robinson, quickly followed by England’s own health secretary Alan Johnson, tells us that public displays of cigarettes are hindering official ‘efforts to denormalise smoking’. Apparently, being able to see the rows of cigarette packets that are a familiar sight in every corner shop and garage in the country makes smoking seem like a normal part of life. And that just won’t do. The problem for our great leaders is that notwithstanding their best efforts, smoking is a normal part of millions of people’s lives. What a nuisance — 25 per cent of the adult population just won’t conform.
Despite being bludgeoned with gory details of the health risks and being evicted into the cold and rain, they keep puffing away. Maybe further humiliation will make them feel even more like deviant pariahs. Smokers will now have to purchase their illicit weed furtively under the counter, reminiscent of the days when backstreet shops used to sell porn and condoms. A perfectly everyday, innocent transaction will now become embarrassing and hence, ‘de-normal’. I don’t expect anyone to get overexcited by the detail of the new ‘point of sale’ restrictions, which seem largely silly gestures rather than serious proposals. Whether it’s not being able to see the variety of brands and prices behind the counter or the proposed ban on vending machines, these plans may inconvenience smokers — they’ll certainly cause a loss of business for cornershop retailers — but they’re hardly life or death changes. Meanwhile, the plan to prohibit the sale of packets of ten is just plain daft; as others have noted, you wouldn’t try to cut chocolate consumption by only selling supersize bars. Yes, I concede, these measures are fairly petty and trivial. However, more serious and not a little sinister is when politicians start legislating to impose their version of normal on us all. Bet I can guess what a life lived according to government approval looks like. Mr & Mrs Normal Citizen will: count their units, eat their greens and recycle
(and cycle) with gusto — meet the modern-day Young Pioneers. One good thing about this relentless war on tobacco is that it makes a mockery of the original arguments for the smoking ban. That law, we were assured, was certainly not about the government interfering in individuals’ choices. Instead we were subject to the loudly touted but less convincingly proven pseudo-scientific ‘evidence’ that passive smoking caused harm to others. Politicians conceded that the state had no jurisdiction over people taking risks with our own health; the ban was solely to protect hapless non-smokers in the pub, club or bar. Now no such spurious explanations are given. Even zealots cannot make a case for linking vending machines to second-hand smoke. This is explicitly about making smokers stop smoking (and to reach the government’s target of reducing the smoking rate to 21 per cent by 2010). Of course, this is not posed as a coercive measure to force the hardcore to go against their choice to smoke. Rather it’s official help for us to do what we all are supposed to agree is in our best interest. Robinson explained to the Scottish parliament that ‘displays stimulate impulse purchases among those not intending to buy cigarettes and, importantly, among smokers who are trying to give up’. Stella Duffy, chief executive of the anti-smoking campaign ASH, tells us, ‘Putting cigarettes out of sight will support smokers who are trying to quit’. How nice — these caring Samaritans are just trying to protect muddled smokers from their own impulses and weak wills. The problem with this outlook is that it flies in the face of the very basis of a free democratic society. It undermines the idea that people are self-determining subjects. Instead we are posited as impressionable, prey to addictions, incapable of resisting advertising, compelled to act by the mere glimpse of a few fag packets. The serious implications of infantilising adults in this way were spelt out by none other than freedom’s champion John Stuart Mill 150 years ago. In one of the less fashionable sections of On Liberty, Mill wrote about the regulation of ‘beer and spirit houses’. He classed drinking as an individual act (as indeed smoking is), ‘for right or wrong’, and argued that along with religion, opinion and other ‘experiments in living’, it should be ‘outside’ the scope of the law. He pointedly described attempts at making alcohol ‘more difficult to access’ and ‘diminishing the occasions of temptation’ as ‘suited only to a state of society in which the labouring classes are avowedly treated as children or savages’. Speaking of children and savages, it is not surprising that one of the 21st-century excuses for ‘diminishing temptation’ is the protection of the young. Whenever excessive regulation is on the horizon, you can guarantee our kids will be wheeled out as a battering ram against adult opposition. Alan Johnson claims that because ‘you can’t have any control over the age of the person’ buying cigarettes from a vending machine, they should be scrapped (even though the law already prohibits those under 18 from pubs that host vending machines). He claims that younger people ‘are more influenced by advertising’. That will explain the popularity of cannabis, then, all those billboards and TV ads. Finally, packets of ten are popular with non-wage-earning teenagers. But even with falling educational standards, the average 15-year-old can calculate that buying a packet of ten every two days can be replaced by buying a packet of 20 every four days. What’s more, it doesn’t take an expert in child psychology to surmise that turning cigarettes into an under-the-counter purchase will most likely make them even more glamorous to your average rebellious teen.
When politicians scaremonger about the alarming recent increase in numbers of underage smokers, they fail to acknowledge that this coincides with the most intensive anti-smoking drive ever known. Might there be a lesson in this? Of course, coming up with rational objections to these illiberal measures misses the point. As the use of that ugly word ‘denormalising’
makes clear, this legislation is less concerned with enforceable policy than in sending messages about what constitutes normal, acceptable behaviour. Ms Robinson explained her legislation as an attempt ‘to shift cultural perceptions of smoking’. In other words, this is law used as propaganda. But all is not lost — in England at least. The proposals are only going out for consultation this month, so we can all have our say.
Oh sorry. The Secretary of State for Health has already gone on Andrew Marr’s TV couch pre-consultation and declared that he supports the Scottish bans. Presumably anyone consulted who dares express ‘denormalised’ views will be ignored. Let’s bombard him anyway. For those many of us still keen to embrace Mill’s ‘experiments in living’, and to normalise a freedom, it really is time to draw the line here. Read Cigarette Packs May Go Plain in UK June 2, 2008 Plain packs a risk to UK cigarette profits-analysts British cigarette makers face a new and serious risk to their profits if the UK government rules that cigarettes should only be sold in plain packaging, undermining the power of brands, analysts said on Monday. Cigarette companies can often offset lower sales by raising prices as happened when England introduced smoking bans in pubs and bars last year, but a move to plain packaging would see smokers switch to cheaper brands and hit profits, they said. The UK government launched a three-month public consultation on Saturday involving a number of measures to cut the number of smokers. The most serious for industry profits is the move to ban branding and company colours from packages. If this measure is implemented, then all UK cigarette packs will be white and brand names printed in plain black type. The only color on the packs will be graphic health warnings. "We believe the proposal would be extremely serious for the tobacco industry if implemented," said industry analyst Adam Spielman at investment bank Citi, who believes there is a 50 percent chance the proposal will be enforced by 2010. Plain packaging would require new legislation, so if the measure is to become law the industry is likely to hear plans in the latter part of 2008 for a law to be passed in 2009 and implemented in 2010, analysts say. They also say the political mood may be against the tobacco industry as the UK parliament voted by a large majority for last year's ban on smoking in English pubs, and at the time this seemed quite controversial but now seems quite popular. Britain's biggest cigarette company is Imperial Tobacco with a 46.1 percent share followed by Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut group Gallaher, taken over by Japan Tobacco last year, with a share of just under 40 percent. British American Tobacco has a 6 percent stake. Imperial Tobacco Group shares were off 6.2 percent and Rothmans and Lucky Strike maker BAT down 1.1 percent in a UK stock market down 0.8 percent. The industry's profitability is based around its leading brands and it would be harmful to manufacturers if smokers traded down to cheaper cigarettes, as analysts say different brands may taste different but the difference in quality is barely perceptible. Citi's Spielman says for Imperial Tobacco its net sales from its premium-priced brand such as Embassy is 96 pence a pack while it only gets 70p from mid-priced Lambert and Butler and much less for discounted brands. Dresdner Kleinwort analyst Charles Manso de Zuniga said: "In extremis, a UK tobacco market of plain boxes is likely to become very price-driven, maybe even wiping out the premium sector." Any legal challenge from the industry would test the right of a government to try to improve public health against the right of companies to use their trademark brands. "We would oppose these moves, we have the right to differentiate our products from our competitors," said an Imperial Tobacco spokesman. BAT said: "We believe that plain packs would undermine a consumer's ability to clearly choose one brand over a competitor's and will make it even harder to spot fakes, playing into the hands of black market criminals." The consultation paper proposed by the UK Department of Health is also suggesting banning displays in shops and vending machines and also abolishing packs of 10 to make the minimum cigarette pack size 20. Smoking-related diseases kill 87,000 people a year in England, and despite a drop in the number of smokers by 1.9 million in the past decade, smoking remains the nation's biggest killer. Smoke-related illness costs Britain's National Health Service between 1.4 billion pounds and 1.7 billion pounds ($2.75-$3.34 billion) a year, while the cigarette companies pay over 10 billion pounds in tax to the UK government. Read
Cigarette packet images vote
May 27 2006
People are being asked for their views on what kind of picture warnings should be put on cigarette packets.
The images - which will be put on packets from autumn next year - include photographs of people with rotting teeth and badly damaged lungs.
The Government wants to know what the public thinks of them and to rate those they regard as the most powerful.
Canada was the first country to put such pictures on cigarettes and they are also used in Singapore and Brazil.
The 42 images, which are on the website www.packwarnings.nhs.uk, include people wearing oxygen masks in hospital with the words "Smoking causes fatal lung cancer" and pictures of a foetus with the words "Smoking harms your baby".
There is also one of a patient receiving emergency treatment with the headline "Smoking clogs the arteries and causes heart attacks and strokes".
Others show people wearing masks in hospital while some depict small children potentially suffering the effects of smoke inhalation.
A total of 14 different messages will be chosen for inclusion on the packets, which will roll out to other tobacco products in 2008.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, said: "We have already made a lot of progress with the stark written warnings on cigarette packs.
"Since they were introduced in 2003, they have prompted between two and four thousand calls to the NHS smoking helpline every month."
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