So you think it’s just a cigarette pack? Think again. As other forms of tobacco advertising have been banned, cigarette packaging has become the most important marketing vehicle the industry has to attract new smokers.
Plain packaging will end this deadly form of promotion. Along with an integrated program of educational campaigns and support for quitters, the action is aimed at further reducing smoking and saving some of the 15,000 lives lost in Australia every year to tobacco.
The Benefits
- Reduce appeal of smoking to young people
- Reduce deception about the harmfulness of cigarettes
- Strengthen the impact of graphic health warnings
Myth It won’t work, so why do it?
Fact As the number of design elements on cigarette packs decrease, so do the level of positive perceptions people have about smoking.
Evidence
There is no evidence that plain packaging will lead to an increase in illicit trade in tobacco products. Tobacco industry claims about the amount of illicit tobacco purchased in Australia have been found to be exaggerated and misleading.
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REMEMBER Cigarettes kill half of all long-term users. It's not a normal consumer product, so let’s not allow it to be packaged like one.
Big tobacco rolls out latest dodgy data on illicit tobacco, report claims $1 billion lost in tax revenue Wednesday 30 May 2012
The latest industry-commissioned report on the illicit tobacco market in Australia was released by British American Tobacco in May 2012. As we'd expect from an industry-sponsored report, this latest offering provides greatly exaggerated estimates of the size of the illegal tobacco market in Australia and other dubious claims. Read more...
Coalition backs plain packaging move Tuesday 31 May 2011
New laws to sell cigarettes in plain packets are set to pass parliament after the coalition swung behind the Gillard government move.
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Cigarettes likely to get plain packages Wednesday 25 May 2011
Cigarettes look set to be put in plain packages, with WA Nationals MP Tony Crook supporting Labor on the issue Read more...