Packaging, tick: now the targets are additives, nicotine and a timed ban

Welcoming the imposition in Australia on Saturday of mandatory plain packaging for tobacco products, an anti-tobacco campaigner said there was still more that could be done, according to an Australian Associated Press (AAP) story.

From December 1,Australiahas required that all tobacco products be sold in ‘plain packaging’ – packaging designed on behalf of the government to be as ugly as is possible. Packs are hugely dominated by graphic health warnings, are otherwise a standardized olive color, have no logos or other design features, and have brand and variant names in a standardized font and position.

Protecting Children from Tobacco Coalition co-ordinator, Stafford Sanders, described plain packaging as an important part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce smoking uptake but said there was still work to be done.

“We could reach virtually zero prevalence in 10 or 15 years if we were determined enough,” he told AAP.

Among the measures proposed were regulating the cigarette’s contents by prohibiting tobacco flavourings and additives, reducing nicotine or introducing a “cut-off birth year” that would prohibit retailers from selling tobacco to anyone born after that year.

“We are also concerned that the federal coalition parties continue to accept tobacco company donations,” Sanders said.