Plain packaging will save lives say campaigners

May 31 2009 by Laura Caroe, Sunday Sun

TOBACCO brands were once emblazoned across Formula 1 racing cars, football grounds, and they even starred in TV adverts . . . but soon they could even be stubbed out from the packets they were designed for. As World No Tobacco Day is marked today, Laura Caroe reports on health campaigners’ latest bid to help child smokers quit the habit.

We must get rid of glossy designs, says TV’s Duncan

“Let me put my cards on the table. As a dad, the thought of my kids smoking and potentially chucking away years of their life to ill health and an early death terrifies me.

It always amazes me when I hear people talking about defending an adult’s right to smoke.

Let’s be clear . . . most smokers start before they are adults. It’s an addiction that begins in childhood. In some cases they’re smoking 10-a-day before they’re even out of short trousers. I’ve heard of the NHS seeing children as young as eight or nine trying to quit. It’s a tragic situation.

It was a step forward when picture pack warnings were introduced last year. Hopefully a photo of a diseased lung or an amputated limb brings the message home harder to some smokers about the problems they’re storing up for the future.

But still I’ve still heard too many smokers laughing that they want to collect all the warnings, or turning them over so they don’t have to look at them.

That’s why making all cigarette packs plain without the glossy designs is the single, most effective measure the Government could take to reduce smoking among children.

It’s a move that the tobacco companies will fight tooth and nail to prevent happening. These are companies who make billions of dollars and will protect their profits at all cost.

Any of the Dragons in the Den will tell you the brand is everything. Like most manufacturers, cigarette companies invest huge sums of money in packaging. But the problem here is that this money is invested in selling a product that kills one in two of its users.

Research clearly shows that most smokers start before they’re 18. So, most of these new customers for tobacco are our children. All over the world, cigarette packets are marketed to look cool. Not surprisingly, research shows kids find highly decorated fag packets much more attractive than plain ones. Choice of brand is all about the image.

Next time you walk into a shop look at the rows of cigarettes, the shiny sleek logos, holograms and collectors’ item packs. All these packs together create enormous, colourful displays and they’re often just above the sweet counter. In the minds of children, I believe it creates the ultimate forbidden fruit effect . . . they see all the power of advertising but they aren’t allowed to buy them.

The brand also gives the impression some cigarettes are safer than others. Smokers still buy silver or white packets, falsely believing they’re less harmful, even though the industry has been banned from using terms like ‘light’ or ‘mild’.

I have to point out that the vast majority of shops are vigilant about selling to minors. And cigarette companies do not actually sell cigarettes to children, do not actually kill children and they do not make people smoke. But it doesn’t stop the end result, which is tens of thousands of children starting smoking each year. I still believe the products and tactics the tobacco industry uses to generate their wealth are disgraceful.

When I travelled to Africa to make my BBC documentary Bannatyne Takes on Big Tobacco, I was horrified to see single cigarettes being marketed to uneducated children. Even the health warnings weren’t printed in the native language.

This is an industry that for years denied the health dangers of smoking. Thankfully, over the years, some very famous quotes from cigarette industry board meetings have come out. They make very interesting reading.

Any MP should see protecting life as the first principle in a decent society. I’d also ask anyone who says shops’ profits are more important, to stop and consider whether they’d be happy for their kid to start smoking 20-a-day? As we say in the Den: “I’m out!”

Am I a hypocritical ex-smoker? You could argue that, but I just want to see fewer kids sowing the seeds of an early death. I’m not against smokers, just the addiction they find themselves in and the industry that helps them smoke themselves to an early death.

I don’t want my kids to sacrifice their health so tobacco industry shareholders can grow richer. Do you?”