The Irate Tobacco Industry

"[Plain packaging for cigarettes represents a vital step forward to end] a tragedy of the 20th Century."
"Smoking doesn't kill all smokers -- it only kills half of them. If a fifth of Canadians are smoking, it means one in ten Canadians is going to die prematurely."
"People are always worried about youth -- as they should be -- but I think it will be [mandated plain packaging] powerful for everybody. It rebrands the products for them. This time, the package is going to look and feel different."
"Even for the longtime smoker, it will be a new chapter in their relationship to this drug to which they are addicted."
"It's [the renewed initiative to tackle turning people away from smoking] the first burst of energy we've had at the federal level since 2000. There's an excitement about what comes next. It feels like we're back in the game -- it's a different game."
Cynthia Callard, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada

"With results like this [Australia's anti-smoking packaging initiative], one has to ask why the Canadian government continues to cite Australia as the model to follow."
"Nobody in Canada starts smoking because of the packs, which are already hidden from public view and covered with graphic health warnings."
Jeffrey Guiler, spokesman, Imperial Tobacco Canada

"That's not the opinion of the Australian government [that the experiment undertaken to convince people to stop smoking because of the health hazards graphically displayed on cigarette packaging hasn't succeeded] or independent analyses, and I've never seen that from anyone who hasn't been paid by the companies."
"The difference is there's no other consumer product that if you use it exactly as you're supposed to, it kills you."
"All of the evidence right now suggests that light or low-tar cigarettes are either as harmful as, or more harmful than, the cigarettes that were sold in the 1950s or 1960s. That is the false impression that is being conveyed on packing."
"Canada came close to doing this [severely regulating packaging] 30 years ago. This is the last remaining bastion of their [tobacco industry] marketing and that is why they fight this so hard. The industry has come out and said, 'Any country that does this we'll fight it and we'll fight it with all of our resources."
David Hammond, School of Pubic Health, University of Waterloo

Sean Kilpatrick, The Canadian Press

Although there has been a notable decline in the numbers of Canadians who remain smokers, tobacco products remain in use by over five million Canadians. And that unwillingness or inability to wean themselves away from tobacco is costly in terms of long-term health and longevity for far too many people, as well as being costly to the universal health care system. Hospitals in Canada feature signage geared to persuade people just how harmful to health smoking is. At hospital heart units persuasive arguments are presented and offers made to enroll smokers in smoking-cessation clinics.

The simple reality is that tobacco kills, and as a result of its ubiquity despite society having become accustomed to regulations that don't permit smoking in public areas, including shopping malls, supermarkets, restaurants, bars and offices, the pervasive habit of dependency on tobacco has reached a plateau. Fewer people may smoke than the numbers that did decades ago, but those who remain caught in the orbit of tobacco pay the price. Smoking causes the death of 37,000 Canadians annually.

Smoking among youth is not quite as 'cool' as it once was, and there has been a noted decline. Among young people one in six report having smoked in the past month, according to data compiled by Health Canada. The kind of plain packaging that also plainly sets out in blatant gruesome photographs the effect on the human body that can commonly occur with smoking is used in Australia, the United Kingdom and France. Ten additional countries are considering its use as a necessary step in a public campaign.

An Australian bookshop employee handles packaged cigarettes that have to be sold in identical olive-brown packets bearing the same typeface and largely covered with graphic health warnings, with the same style of writing so the only identifier of a brand will be the name on the package.  (WILLIAM WEST)

Understandably, the tobacco industry that has fought back against bad press for decades is none too pleased at this more recent federal government decision to force them to change their packaging to reflect its contents' deleterious effect on human health. According to Igor Dzaja, general manager of JTI-Macdonald Corp. the focus of the government should be on illegal cigarettes "instead of implementing another misguided regulation". For as far as the industry is concerned the imposition of plain packaging "interferes with consumers' freedom".

Traditional designs on packaging were geared toward persuading people that smoking was harmless, "modern", "elegant", and their packaging was "unique" to their tastes; slimmer, 'lighter', and for the younger set, cooler with pink highlights on packaging appealing particularly to girls and young women. Even the initiative to "perfume" packs  was geared to appeal to young women who bought the argument that smoking guarantees they will be slimmer smoking less harmful skinny sticks.

Additional areas of prospective debate on the issue of cessation-persuasion would likely include heavier price controls, reducing commercial venues where tobacco can be bought, and enhanced exposure to training for doctors to help make their arguments to their patients more effective, that stopping the use of tobacco will improve their health and the quality of their longer, more productive lives.


A mock-up design of a standardised cigarette pack in the U.K.. This image is fully compliant with both the EU Tobacco Products Directive and the U.K. standardised tobacco packaging regulations. Tobacco giants have lost a legal challenge in London against rules for standardised packaging.  (HANDOUT)