The World No Tobacco Day is observed on May 31 every year, and this year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling for governments across the world to enact policies for plain packaging of tobacco products. New Zealand, which aims to be a smoke-free nation by 2025, said Tuesday it would introduce plain packaging, a week after it announced higher taxes to be imposed on tobacco.
WHO’s slogan for this year’s World No Tobacco Day is “Get ready for plain packaging.”
Standardised packaging would refer to “measures to restrict or prohibit the use of logos, colours, brand images or promotional information on packaging other than brand names and product names displayed in a standard colour and font style”.
Tobacco consumption, whether from smoking or chewing, is one of the major causes of mouth and lung cancer across the world and is also responsible for a number of other illnesses like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease and stroke.
Australia was the first country in the world to fully implement plain packaging, a decision from December 2012 that was challenged by Philip Morris International. The maker of brands such as Marlboro and L&M lost the case in December 2015, and other countries — the United Kingdom, France and Ireland — passed similar laws in early 2016. The highest court of the European Union also ruled, earlier this month, in favor of regulations that give its member states the option of implementing plain packaging for tobacco products. Several other countries around the world are discussing legislation along such lines as well.
New Zealand had first announced a proposal for plain packaging in 2013, and on Tuesday, its Associate Health Minister Sam Lotu-Iiga said the country would impose a ban on attractive packaging soon. There would be a two-month consultation period, following which recommendations for implementing the ban would be sent to the government.
“Twelve New Zealanders die prematurely every day from smoking-related illnesses — each of these deaths is preventable,” Lotu-Iiga said. Referring to the legal efforts by the tobacco industry to block such actions by governments, he added: “They may well take a case against the government, but the advice we have been getting over time now has been that the risks of them being successful … is reducing.”