Note: World Lung Foundation united with The Union North America. From January 2016, the combined organization is known as “Vital Strategies.”
(New York, USA) – World Lung Foundation today congratulated the Irish Parliament for passing legislation to introduce plain standardised packaging for cigarettes in Ireland. The legislation stops the tobacco industry from using pack color and design to appeal to smokers and non-smokers (particularly youth) and will also stop the tobacco industry from using cigarette pack design to convey misleading messages about the relative safety of different brands, when in fact all forms of tobacco are harmful.
The legislation, originally championed by former Minister of Health and current Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Dr James Reilly, removes all forms of branding, including trademarks, logos, colors and graphics from cigarette packets. Brand names will be presented in a uniform typeface for all brands. As in Australia, all cigarette packaging will be in one plain neutral colour, making graphic and textual health warnings more prominent on the front and the back of cigarette packs – potentially increasing retention and understanding of information about the health harms of tobacco use.
Peter Baldini, Chief Executive, World Lung Foundation, commented: “We applaud the leadership shown by the Government of Ireland as it becomes the first country in Europe and among the world’s first to introduce plain packaging – in spite of clear threats of litigation from the tobacco industry and a sustained campaign of lobbying from national and international tobacco interests. This makes it even more commendable that Ireland has taken this step, to stand side-by-side with Australia in putting the health of its people above the naked self-interest of Big Tobacco. We hope this will encourage other governments in Europe and around the world – including France, New Zealand and the UK – to proceed with their own plans to introduce plain packaging. Indeed, we encourage the UK to join Australia and Ireland in legislating for plain packaging in its promised vote before May of this year.
“This is bad news for the tobacco industry, which is only too acutely aware of the power of pack branding in attracting and misleading consumers. That is why it is desperate to stop this exciting new development in tobacco control. As its legal challenges in Australia have failed, and more countries express interest in legislating for plain packaging, the tobacco industry has fallen back on spreading misinformation about the impact of plain packaging on tobacco use, smuggling, and illicit trade. In fact, a growing body of evidence from Australia is proving that plain packaging has a positive effect in reducing tobacco use, countering tobacco companies’ erroneous data and spurious arguments.
“Once this legislation is enacted, the same combination of graphic pack warnings and plain packaging will help encourage Irish smokers to quit and discourage youth in Ireland from taking up smoking, potentially further accelerating the recent decrease in smoking prevalence in Ireland from 21.5% in 2013 to 19.5% in 2014. With such comprehensive tobacco control in place, countless lives could be saved in the coming years. We congratulate the Government of Ireland and encourage the President to assent to the passage of the bill so a date can be set for implementation as soon as possible.”
Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of mortality in the world today, and is responsible for more than five million deaths each year—one in ten preventable deaths worldwide. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), to which Ireland is a party, commits countries to limit tobacco advertising and to implement graphic pack warnings to warn users of the danger of tobacco use. Plain packaging will extend the power of those strategies and save more lives. It is one of the World Health Organization’s M-P-O-W-E-R (W=Warn) strategies to reduce tobacco consumption – a “best buy” for public health. MPOWER strategies are endorsed and promoted by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, of which World Lung Foundation is a principal partner.