It is difficult to believe that tobacco companies wield as much power as they once did, but they are still fighting hard to regain packaging freedoms. By Candide McDonald.
The UK’s move towards standardised packaging for cigarettes in England has reignited a global battle, the world’s media being its public arena. The war has spread quickly, and Australia became a battlefield in early June.
Why us? In the UK, the political will to follow Australia and implement standardised packaging is in place - MPs voted overwhelmingly by 453 to 24 in favour of the measure earlier this year. But implementation will depend on ministers deciding to proceed. If plain packaging is “not working in Australia,” the next vote may not be ‘overwhelmingly’ for it.
Australia is the only country to have plain packaging for cigarettes so far. We introduced plain packaging in December 2012. The UK, Ireland and New Zealand are considering it now. But, the following extract will give you a hint of the resistance to plain. And by whom. In anticipation of the UK decision, Japan Tobacco International [producer of the Camel, Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut brands] ran the following ad in the UK in 2012, with this message:
“The black market in tobacco is booming. Last year it cost the Treasury £3bn in unpaid duty. Standardising cigarette packs will make them easier to fake, more profitable for organised crime, and so cost the country millions more in lost duty. There is no evidence whatsoever that standardising packs would reduce smoking rates, but plenty of evidence to suggest that low-priced fakes increase demand among the very people the proposal is intended to protect. So, smoking rates rise whilst tax revenues fall. Where’s the sense in a policy like that?”
The ad was taken down by the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency - in 2013. Another was created and ran in 2013. It too was eventually removed.
Similar arguments have also been made in the media and in submissions to government by British American Tobacco (BAT), Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris (PMI).
Tobacco company claims on illicit cigarette trade have been attacked as a deliberate industry strategy to derail standardised packaging in the UK. Here too. In March 2014 a BAT claim that illicit tobacco was up by 30% was subsequently contradicted by government data showing no increase.
The Australian ran an incendiary ‘exclusive story’ on plain packaging last week. It used research funded by Big Tobacco to argue that the number of cigarettes sold in Australia had gone up since plain packaging was introduced. This is contradicted by data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
But the argument raged anyway. Stephen Koukoulas, former economic adviser to Julia Gillard, argued that cigarette consumption had increased because expenditure had. Expenditure is not a perfect indicator of consumption, as conditions such as price discounting and increases in excise rates muddy the waters.
Mike Daube, professor of health policy at Curtin University and president of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, was conscripted into the argument with an observation that debaters on both sides ignored. Unless the industry releases the raw data, arguing about it is useless. He put this in a Letter to the Editor which, he told Crikey, The Australian would not publish: Letter to Editor by Mike Daube
He also told the ABC’s Brendan Trembath in an interview:
"Well we just have to assume that the tobacco companies are being as misleading as they have for more than 50 years. This is a lethal product. They've been lying about the harms for years. They've been lying about the impacts of their promotion because of litigation in the US now we have access to tens of millions of what's confidential tobacco industry documents showing this industry has been even more cynical and deceptive than we'd imagined…
…There's a lot that the industry should release. The industry should release this information. The industry should release information on how much it's spending on lobbying and public relations activity. The industry should release information, its own research on the importance of brands for tobacco sales.
And frankly, I would love to see what the industry in Australia is advising the British industry because plain packaging looks like it's going to happen in the UK too. Australia is the world leader but other countries are going to follow. No wonder the tobacco industry is desperately worried.”
Then, while the media hosted a hot potato bickerfest, the Federal Treasury made a quiet statement. It published, on the Health Department’s website, previously secret information (that it collects to levy tobacco excise) which shows sales falling since the introduction of graphic health warnings and plain packaging.
A link on the Health Department website goes to a briefing by Imperial Tobacco chief executive, Alison Cooper, which states that during the first six months of plain packaging the Australian tobacco market shrank ''roughly 2 to 3 per cent''.
The Treasury data shows 3.4% fewer cigarettes were sold last year than 2012, before plain packaging became mandatory. This data is in line with national accounts data that shows a decline of 0.9% in the amount of tobacco and cigarettes sold between 2012 and last year.
The national accounts show a further fall of 7.6% in the three months to March after the first of several large increases in tobacco excise announced late last year.
The Treasury data suggests that, adjusted for population growth of 1.7%, the number of sticks sold per person decreased by about 5% between 2012 and last year.
This decline mirrors the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, which indicates that consumption of tobacco here is at its lowest ever recorded. Both sets of date conflict with industry claims that tobacco sales climbed by 59 million sticks or roll-your-own equivalents last year.
