I’m fed up with this whole plain packs debacle. Fed up reading about it, fed up writing about, and yet here I find myself, typing away on that very subject. Again. It’s like a slow, painful crawl across broken glass to reach a destination that you don’t even want to get to. Because let’s face it, no matter how loud we shout, no matter how clear the evidence it won’t make a jot of a difference, if the Government wants to introduce standardised packaging then they will do so.
What exactly is the point of this second Westminster consultation? The last time the UK Government consulted on the matter there were 665,000 responses with 427,888 opposing the measure. That’s what you call a healthy majority. On any other topic, such a response would lead to the assertion that the public wasn’t that keen on the idea and so, in what you could perhaps label an actual democratic process, the idea wouldn’t have been pursued. But let’s not let democracy get in the way of a newspaper headline or 40. There are a couple of quotes worth trotting out here.
The first comes from the Prime Minister himself, who this time last year said: “there isn’t yet sufficient evidence for [standardised packaging] and there is considerable legal uncertainty about it.” In the subsequent 12 months I’ve yet to see sufficient evidence emerge. We’re constantly being told about studies that provide ‘evidence’ of what will happen if plain packs are introduced, but here’s the thing, a study doesn’t provide evidence, it speculates: it’s conjecture, and by definition that isn’t proof. If you want actual proof you have to look at real life implementation, so let’s whizz across the globe to Australia where plain packs were introduced in December 2012. Since then the illicit trade has increased by 20%, now accounting for 13.9% of all tobacco consumption.
Furthermore tobacco sales actually went up for the first time in five years! The other quote comes from Public Health Minister Jane Ellison, who in April said she was “minded to proceed” with plain packs legislation in the wake of the inconclusive Chantler Report, so again, what’s the point of this costly consultation? Here’s an idea. Next April tobacco will be removed from display in what has been heralded as a major deterrent for teenage smoking (again, proof is thin on the ground), and in 2016 health warnings on packs will increase to 65% of the front and back of the pack. How about we see how we get on with these measures before we start wasting time and money with pointless consultations which will only be acted on if the Government gets the result it wants.
