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Australian Cigarettes: Big Tobacco Loses Plain Packaging Fight
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by NowPublic Staff | August 15, 2012 at 09:30 am
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Australian Cigarette Packaging to Feature Health Warning, No Branding
Major tobacco companies have been handed a massive defeat in Australia. The High Court ruled that the controversial plain-packaging legislation is constitutional, which means that the Federal Government can force tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in unbranded packs that only feature graphic health warnings.
The cigarette company name and product type (i.e. lights, menthols, etc.) will only be featured in small, plain type at the bottom of the packet.
Big Tobacco is furious, arguing that their right to assert a brand has been unfairly infringed upon. he argument that the High Court ruling benefits sellers of illegal tobacco is not particularly convincing.
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Australian Cigarette Packages to Show Only Health Warnings
uploaded by NowPublic Staff
The rationale behind the Labour-backed legislation is simple: scare new smokers away from cigarettes with graphic imagery on each packet sold. However, addicted smokers are less likely to be affected: it's not as if the health risks of smoking have been obscured in recent decades.
Also, expect to see a resurgence of the cigarette case, as smokers will buy cigarettes, transfer them to a stylish case, and simply throw out the scary-looking packet in which the cigarettes were originally sold.
When we write "Big Tobacco", we mean British American Tobacco/BAT (Lucky Strike), Japan Tobacco International, Imperial Tobacco and, Philip Morris (Marlboro), which filed suit against the legislation.
Australia's decision is seen as a litmus test to the viability of such radical overhaul of how cigarettes are sold. Australia may be a relatively small market, but the USA is not.
In terms of what makes people smoke, though, packaging is perhaps less relevant than other, immediate sociological factors.
In a similar but less far-reaching move, Canada has banned the display of cigarettes in stores: they're hidden behind hastily-constructed beige doors. The idea behind the display ban was that cigarettes become normalized in the minds of kids when displayed alongside other supermarket and convenience-store items, perhaps missing the whole grownup-and-forbidden factor that accompanies teen smoking.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
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Mabel (not verified)at 18:10 on August 15th, 2012
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Skeptical (not verified)at 13:54 on August 16th, 2012
Big Tobacco? More like Big Government. What's next: alcohol, cars, unhealthy food, prophylactics? And who makes these decisions for us? I think it's amazing how most people complain about their oversized/bureaucratic, costly, restrictive, greedy, stupid government, and then think that apparatus can come up with a good law. It's called 'popularist' people.Don't kid yourselves, everyone has lobbied this issue, governments and corporations alike. 5 minutes of web research will show that illegal cigarettes (not made by 'Big Tobacco') have no quality control and fuel crime, and account for the 4th or 5th (depending on source) worlwide cigarette sales. I guarantee you these criminals don't care about selling to kids. At least big tobacco has quality control and so don't put sh*t (figurative, people) into their product. it's all legal components, or the things would be illegal. Duh! Does anyone remember prohibition in the US? Ok, maybe not since it was the 1920s, but the point is that bootlegging liquor kickstarted the 'crime families'. Well, from December onwards, I'm curious to see how cigarette smuggling stats change in nanny-state-australia, and whether the government will be honest enough to publish them. You don't think Big Government has an agenda? You can't be that naive, surely.Does anyone have any doubt that a single cigarette pack design won't play right into the hands of the counterfeiters? Are you really that stupid? Perhaps Big Government should cautiously treat Big Tobacco (bearing in mind their past dishonesty - no less than the Banks over the past 10 years and they seem to have gotten away with it) as allies so as to combat the illegal trade? At least big tobacco pays taxes, whereas illegal cigarettes just eat up police time and budget.And no, I don't smoke. But I like having the choice to do what I want, and I pity a world where rows of supermarket shelves contain faecal-brown alcoholic and sugary beverages, snacks, and the like. I'm an adult, and I like trendy-looking things (iPhone etc) but somehow (even during my childhood years) I managed not to be hypnotized by fancy cigarette advertizing. Seems like I had a lucky escape...
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Colin. (not verified)at 07:10 on August 21st, 2012
I agree with skeptical. Where does it all stop? And scary packaging will make no difference at all. Next it will be people complaining that they feel unwell if they look at the pictures!