Pack row plainly set to continue

The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance has sought to rebut claims made by the Confederation of Malaysian Tobacco Manufacturers that the government’s plan to require tobacco products to be sold in standardized packaging could violate international agreements and have far-reaching implications on the use of trademarks and intellectual property rights in other industries, according to a Malay Mail story relayed by the TMA.

Mary Assunta, senior policy advisor at the alliance, said the measure was just an extension of the country’s wide-ranging ban on tobacco advertising and promotion.

She was quoted as urging the tobacco industry to “stop spreading misleading and false information”.

Assunta said that when Australia introduced standardized packaging in 2012, the tobacco companies had filed a constitutional legal challenge, which they had lost.

In fighting the claim, Japan Tobacco International explicitly described a tobacco pack as ‘our billboard’.

Hence, just as tobacco advertising on billboards was banned, it should be banned also on cigarette packaging.

Assunta said that in pushing the argument that standardized packaging would worsen tobacco smuggling, JTI had exaggerated the illegal trade statistics in Malaysia.

Australia’s latest official report showed JTI’s claim was not true. According to Australia’s ‘Post-Implementation Review: Tobacco Plain Packaging 2016’ there was no change in smokers’ reported use of illicit tobacco, no evidence of increases in the use of contraband cigarettes, and no increase in purchases of tobacco from informal sellers.