Winning slowly but steadily

The solution to failure is not to redouble your efforts, but to change course, according to a story by Sinclair Davidson published in The Nation.
Davidson, who is a professor of economics at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, said that, during the past 10 years, Thailand had attempted to curb smoking by enlarging the size of picture health warnings on cigarette packs repeatedly. Now, the gruesome photos covered up to 85 percent of packs, yet the number of Thai smokers was increasing.
‘This incongruence ought to give Thai authorities pause to consider new ways to cut smoking,’ he said.
‘The most successful policies globally have usually been slow but steady – public education about health effects tends to discourage older smokers while cost and taxation tend to discourage youth from taking up the habit.’
Davidson said a better solution for Thailand would be to emulate Japan’s emphasis on education, teaching children from an early age about the dangers of smoking.
‘It is not a quick fix, of course,’ he said. ‘But if Thailand wants to lower the prevalence of smoking it should not follow the fashionable, but failed, plain packaging policies of Australia, France and the UK.’
But the UK was seen to provide one positive example. ‘The single largest contributor to reduced smoking rates in the UK – until the failed plain packaging policy was adopted – was the mainstreaming of electronic nicotine delivery devices,’ he said. ‘Alternate mechanisms to deliver nicotine to smokers sees many smokers substitute away from combustible tobacco products to safer products and in some cases to quitting altogether.’