Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Also Included In: Regulatory Affairs / Drug Approvals; Public Health
Article Date: 10 Nov 2011 - 9:00 PST
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The Australian Senate, the upper house of parliament, voted on Thursday in favour of new legislation that from December 2012 will force tobacco companies to package their cigarettes in plain olive green, with no branding. The packaging will continue to display, as it does now, graphic pictures and warnings of the harmful effects of cigarette smoking.
This is nearly the last stage of legislation whose progress has been closely watched by New Zealand, Canada and some European countries, who are considering similar steps.
The bill is expected to be rubber stamped by the lower house in the next two weeks before its final stage of Royal Asssent.
Earlier in the day, British American Tobacco Australia (BATA), who own nearly half of the market in Australia, confirmed that if the Senate were to pass the bill they would start proceedings against Australia's Federal Government in the High Court, immediately after the bill gained Royal Assent.
Britain's Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris in Australia have also threatened legal action. The industry says it will also pursue compensation.
The industry's argument includes the claim that plain packaging takes away a tobacco company's right to compete, that there is no evidence it improves public health, and it will promote the sale of illegal tobacco by making it easier to copy the packaging.
Some tobacco producing and exporting countries have also threatend to take Australia to the World Trade Organization.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon told reporters in Melbourne that "big tobacco has been fuming since day one" and the government will not allow itself to be bullied by them. She said "we hope that they don't" go ahead with legal action, but "we're ready for that". She said the industry would do better by communities if they invested in something that was not so harmful.
In 2005, on releasing figures that showed there were more than 1 billion regular smokers around the globe, with 4 out of every 5 being in poorer nations, the World Health Organization urged countries to adopt plain packaging.
Ten years ago, 23% of Australian adults were smokers: now that figure has dropped to 15%. The government wants to reduce this to 10% b 2018.
Written by Catharine Paddock PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
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