The tobacco industry has gone through a lot of changes over the last couple of decades. About 30 years ago, the effects of tobacco were not as thoroughly researched as they are today. Tobacco giants got away with creative ad campaigns that encouraged people to smoke. The cigarette package was sleek and colorful, making smoking look cool until health organizations started doing research and realized the dangers of smoking to your health. Now the World Health Organisation (WHO) is pushing tobacco companies to change their packaging.
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May 31st is World No Tobacco Day and on this date the WHO is focusing on the packing of cigarettes, they recommend the packaging have graphic health warnings instead of logos, brand images or colors.
“WHO is recommending plain packaging to the world, recommending the world to get ready for plain packaging because it reduces the glamour of tobacco products and that is totally appropriate for a product that kills needlessly up to 6 million people per year,” said Douglas Bettcher, Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Department for the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases.
In 2012, Australia became the first country to force tobacco companies to remove branding from cigarette packs. Other countries have followed in their footsteps, selling packs in a single color, with the brand name written in standard font size and new health warnings covering 60% of the pack. So far, the UK, Ireland, and France have introduced legislation.
How Effective Is This?
Experts are barely starting to understand the effects of standardized packaging through a number of experiments, surveys, and focus groups. From the little research that’s been done, researchers have found that this type of packaging changes the attitudes and beliefs around smoking. It reduces the cool factor of smoking, and the graphic pictures and health warnings help scare people. But there is no way in telling if the packaging adds to the decline of people smoking. Since the standardized packaging was introduced in Australia, there’s been a 2.2% drop in smoking. It may not seem like a lot, but that’s roughly 18,000 less people smoking a cigarette.