When he thinks of snooker, Stephen Williams MP finds it “pretty hard to push the word 'Embassy' out of his head”. Opening a Cancer Research UK event on the plain packaging of tobacco products, Williams, chair of the APPG on smoking and health, recalled that, until the final stage of the legislation in 2005, it was legal to advertise smoking. Events like the Snooker World Championships, and Formula 1 teams were sponsored by brands of tobacco.

Since then, the regulation of smoking has become increasingly strict. Today, you have to be 18, not 16, to buy tobacco from behind a shop counter (not the shop floor), and what you buy now has unambiguous written warnings and graphic images on the packet. A lot has changed in recent years, but smoking remains the greatest cause of preventable deaths and, when used as intended, it kills half of all those who use it long-term.

Attended by parliamentarians, scientists and representatives from the healthcare professions, the event ‘Protecting children from tobacco marketing’ set out to discuss the urgency and importance of standardising packaging across the industry. This would mean all packs of cigarettes would be identical, except the brand name (which would be in a standardised font) and the warnings (which, as a result of this, would be made more prominent).

Children are the most susceptible to packaging marketing. Sarah Woolnough, director of policy for Cancer Research UK, said: “We’ve seen more, and new, forms of marketing, particularly targeted at young people and perhaps females. The aim of plain packaging,” Woolnough added, “isn’t to target existing smokers; it’s about changing the behaviour of future generations." As psychology professor Robert West, director of tobacco studies at the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, pointed out: “Imagery is very important in driving people to try something… the large majority of smokers start when they’re in their teens.”

Woolnough highlighted the urgent need for change by quoting an internal presentation by Philip Morris (the tobacco company that owns Marlboro and Benson & Hedges): “Our final communication vehicle with our smokers is the pack itself. In the absence of any other marketing messages, our packaging… is the sole communicator of our brand essence. Put another way: when you don’t have anything else, our packaging is our marketing.”

The tobacco industry has been quick to attack these measures, but its criticisms were promptly debunked by this panel of experts.

Robert West addressed the “bleating from the tobacco industry” about the denying of personal freedoms. “We’re trying to get back to a point that is something close to rational,” he said, noting that if cigarettes were invented tomorrow, with all this evidence about the negative effects to your health, there would be no chance of them being legalised. “The tobacco industry is jolly lucky to be in existence at all,” he said.

To the detractors’ claim that standardisation would make illicit tobacco more difficult to detect, Peter Astley MBE, strategic lead on illicit tobacco for Trading Standards North West, pointed out: “One in nine of all products sold in the world today will be counterfeit.” This problem is already so great, he maintained, that “the problem of identification will be no harder for my officers.”

Some have suggested that if brands were forced to compete only on price, then prices would fall and demand could increase. But Sarah Woolnough pointed out that the government holds the tax levers, and any fall in the average price of tobacco could be offset that way.

So far, Australia is the only country in the world to have plans to standardise tobacco packaging, and the policy doesn’t come into force until December. This has prompted some to question the feasibility of a law that has no precedent. But “every policy at national level is untested until you do it”, said West.

As soon as the debate was opened up to the floor, Liberal Democrat MP John Leech, also a member of the APPG on smoking and health, quizzed the panel. “Has there been any consideration of what colour the cigarettes would be?” he asked, before suggesting that the murky green colour that has been considered for the packaging might be a smart move. The panel seemed to agree, highlighting the need for cigarette design to be regulated too if packaging is to be standardised.

Packaging may not be the very last promotional tool the tobacco industry has, but the event’s conclusion was that it is an exceptionally significant one. This campaign “could be a game-changer", stressed West. He added that wth the campaign “we will be moving towards the end-game for smoking”.

Most accept that advertising has power, especially over the young. A recent YouGov poll found that eight out of ten respondents were in favour of introducing plain packaging if there is evidence that it makes cigarettes less attractive to children.

Coming generations may no longer associate tobacco brands with snooker or with F1, but they will still be susceptible to the effects of packaging.
With 100,000 deaths per year in the UK caused by smoking, the consensus was that something must be done.

And plain packaging is a step in the right direction.

Tags: Cancer Research UK, Issue 47, Plain packaging