Plain packs proposal draws fire
An international coalition comprising 47 think tanks, advocacy groups and organizations has written to the World Health Organization opposing the use of standardized packaging as a method of tobacco control.
The WHO this year used World No Tobacco Day (May 31) to call for all countries ‘to get ready for plain (standardized) packaging of tobacco products’.
According to the WHO: ‘Plain packaging is an important demand reduction measure that reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products, restricts use of tobacco packaging as a form of tobacco advertising and promotion, limits misleading packaging and labelling, and increases the effectiveness of health warnings’.
But in a letter addressed to WHO’s director general, Dr. Margaret Chan, the coalition says that the right to own property is a fundamental human right. ‘Thus, the protection of property rights, physical and intellectual, is critical,’ the letter said. ‘Creating an environment where property rights are protected and legally enforced contributes to social and economic growth and stability…
‘We, the undersigned organizations, stand against the infringement of trademarks through plain packaging. Plain packaging prohibits the use of trademarks and therefore significantly erodes the value of this intellectual property – a dangerous precedent to set for commerce in general. Denying a manufacturer the right to use its trademark to identify its product strikes at the very core principles of corporate identity and freedom.’
The coalition went on to question the effectiveness of standardized packaging in reducing smoking, to suggest that such packaging has led to a 24 percent increase in the consumption of illicit tobacco in Australia, the first country to introduce standardized packaging and the only country for which there could be any meaningful data, and to point out that standardized packaging was now being extended to products other than tobacco.
The letter and list of signatories is at: http://www.propertyrightsalliance.org/userfiles/file/international-coalition-letter-%20against%20plain%20packaging%20English%20version.pdf.
