Hands off our packs!
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 13:35 
Two weeks ago Stephen Williams MP, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, wrote on this blog:
"Whether you like it or not the Coalition Government is about to launch a consultation on plain packs. I hope you and your friends will be able to rise to the debate."
Now, I always like a challenge and in response to Stephen's comment I am delighted to report that Forest has today launched a brand new website, Hands Off Our Packs (or HOOP, for short).
I invite you to pop over there now. Among other things you will find the latest news about plain packaging (it's more interesting than you think) plus a dedicated blog featuring initial contributions from Chris Snowdon (Velvet Glove Iron Fist) and me. Comments are extremely welcome.
You'll find some well known names lending their support – plus a Further Reading page with links to articles, blogs and websites.
Later this week we'll reveal the Hands Off Our Packs campaign team (recruited at vast expense!). The team will be responsible for keeping the HOOP blog up-to-date but we will be introducing some guest bloggers too.
It's only a start but I hope we have made our intentions clear. More important, if Stephen Williams was worried that we might not "rise to the debate", I trust we have put his mind at rest.
See: Plain talking (Velvet Glove Iron Fist)
Oh, and check out our Facebook page. Click if you 'Like'.
Simon Clark
The Times mentioned Hands Off Our Packs in the business section today.
See also: Plain cigarette packaging campaigners jostle for position (Politics.co.uk) and Smokers group campaigns against plain packs (Off Licence News).
Reader Comments (17)
I have no doubt that even now ASH employees will be writing 50 postcards a day each in preparation. 25 people writing 50 postcards a day will produce 25,000 postcards after 20 days, all ready to be bundled up and dispatched to the ASH (sorry, Health) Dept of the Government.
I really hope that our friends in the Tobacco Industry are geared up for this consultation. The reality is that very, very few people will know that this consultation is going to take place. I really hope that they will ensure as best they can that adverts go out to ensure that everyone in the country is aware of the consultation. I cannot see why our friends should not do so - such adverts can hardly be construed as 'advertising their products'. It isn't often that the interests of smokers and Big Tobacco come together (for various reasons). On this occasion they do most definitely. The reason is that there is involved a fundamental issue of 'choice'. I know that others have pointed this out, but it has often been stated in terms of 'the only competition will be on price'. That is not the point. I want to have the choice of deciding which brand I wish to smoke, even if I decide upon the basis of the 'glitziness' of the packet, or the length/fatness/colour of the cigarettes inside the packet! That is my adult choice.
Fallacies have been allowed to reign for too long already. Time to burst the bubble.
Don't see why tobacco companies couldn't put what used to be called 'cigarette cards' in packets to raise awareness of the 'consultation' about which, as Junican says, few will know.
Our problem, as ever, is reaching smokers who aren't online.
Most of us agree with that Joyce - cards inside packs - can it be done?
"Most of us agree with that Joyce - cards inside packs - can it be done?"
I guess the one to answer that is Simon.
Forest are funded by three tobacco companies, so one would imagine that there is a line of communication. So, Simon, how about asking your sponsors if they are prepared to do their bit for their customers? Cards in packs would be a powerful marketing tool.
The question has been asked ...
Article 13
16. "There should be no advertising or promotion inside or attached to the package or on individual cigarettes or other tobacco products."
http://www.who.int/fctc/guidelines/article_13.pdf
Mentioning the consultation or directing consumers to the Hands Off Our Packs website is quite different to advertising or promoting a particular brand of cigarette or other tobacco product. I don't see what the problem is.
If this plain packaging law comes in, and no advertising (what Rose 2 wrote) this will lead to "counter-fit cigarettes" the government will lose BILLIONS in tax, and it would become a very profitable business for the wrong people, this will be a disaster. And what people will be smoking god only knows, common sense must prevail.
What difference will it make? Smokers will buy them whatever the packs look like. To non-smokers a cig packet is a horrific sight however pretty it is. And how many children are wealthy enough and stupid enough to pay £7 for a pretty packet of fags when they can buy 20 even pretier packets of sweets for the same price?
Steve
The problem is that under article 5.3
"Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law”. And in point 11 they state:
The measures recommended in these guidelines aim at protecting against interference not only by the tobacco industry but also, as appropriate, by organizations and individuals that work to further the interests of the tobacco industry."
"What all this means is that the legislation cannot be allowed to be "subverted" or "interfered with" by not just the tobacco industry, but organisations or individuals who further the interests of the tobacco industry."
"And "individuals" means me. Or anybody else who objects to smoking bans. Because obviously, while any lifting such bans would obviously further the interests of smokers, it would also further the interests of the tobacco companies whose products they consume."
http://frank-davis.livejournal.com/133676.html
And "Plain Packaging" covered in revolting pictures IS Tobacco Control Policy.
This would appear to be an example of article 5.3 in action over the consultation for the display ban.
Tobacco Retailers Concerns 'Air-Brushed Out' By Government, UK
14 Dec 2008
"Members of the Tobacco Retailers Alliance, a coalition of 25,000 independent retailers, have expressed outrage that their views were excluded from a Government report into retail displays of tobacco.
In a report on the Future of Tobacco Control consultation published on Tuesday 9th December 2008, the Department of Health appears to have deliberately omitted evidence offered by the Tobacco Retailers Alliance.
Ken Patel, Leicester retailer and National Spokesman for the Tobacco Retailers Alliance, said: "First the Minister refused to meet with retailers, now they have censored our formal response to a public consultation."
Campaign Manager Katherine Graham said; "We are not listed as one of the respondents although our response was submitted by email and also sent by post, so we can be certain it was received. For some reason the views of 25,000 shopkeepers just seem to have been air-brushed out of the consultation report."
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/132901.php
Which was reported at the time as -
MPs fall foul of 'dirty' tricks by tobacco giants.
14 December 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/14/tobacco-industry-small-retailers
Big Tobacco needs to flex its muscles.
Steve is quite right, by no stretch of the imagination is bringing to the attention of smokers contact details about a campaign in any way advertising or promoting a particular product.
Incidentally, the cards could also include the website address of the petition by AWT so that the smoker – who may not be aware of this initiative – can then go online with their computer or their friends and relatives computer or internet café computers – and vote.
Going back to the sixties and seventies, those that are old enough, would remember the coupons in packs of Players Number 6, and Embassy Number 1s, whereby you could save up coupons and get a free prize. Hundreds and thousands of smokers did just that. Some people would sell their coupons to others if they were only a few short of the desired prize; this fun practice was very widespread at the time.
So, how long do you think it would take for AWTs petition to reach 100,000 – eh? Being a cynic though, I would have thought this strategy would have crossed the minds of BT executives long ago.
I really do think BT could do more – and become pro-active rather than reactive. Why not do something, then if politicians don’t like it tough – let them bring in legislation to stop it
I should imagine that the critical thing about cig cards and adverts is the actual wording of the legislation about tobacco advertising.
From the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002.
Meaning of “tobacco advertisement” and “tobacco product”
In this Act—
“tobacco advertisement” means an advertisement—
(a)whose purpose is to promote a tobacco product, or
(b)whose effect is to do so, and
“tobacco product” means a product consisting wholly or partly of tobacco and intended to be smoked, sniffed, sucked or chewed.
I don't see anything in there which, by any stretch of the imagination, could be construed to mean the advertising of a consultation.
Yes, tobacco companies would no longer be allowed to insert cards, like coupons or the ones that people used to collect and frame (weren't they lovely, and redolent of a gentler age?) because they could be seen as encouraging smoking. A card which merely makes consumers aware of a consultation which will affect them is, however, really no more than a public service announcement.
'a public service announcement' I like that Joyce. How true.
Another tack if this legislation is steamrollered through (which it probably will be) is that the tobacco companies could license, for a nominal fee, independent packaging manufacturers to reproduce their original packs, sans warnings and photoshopped porno images for sale at retail outlets. If the packs contain no tobacco products, they shouldn't come under current legislation, particularly if they aren't being marketed by the tobacco companies. The tobacco companies could then make their plain packets in such a way that the internal foil wrapping is easy to slide out of the pack and to slide into a replacement. I'm not sure if and how the legalities would work, but it would be a rather delicious irony if the plain packaging legislation led to the proliferation of original packs without warnings.
Plain Packs Protect is now advertised by Google. Hopefully Hands off our packs will follow suit.