500,000 oppose plain packaging
Thursday, August 16, 2012 at 0:01 The strength of opposition to plain packaging of tobacco can now be revealed.
Last week the Forest-run Hands Off Our Packs campaign delivered to the Department of Health the names and addresses of over 235,000 people who are opposed to the measure.
But that was only half of it. Literally.
The number of people actively against plain packaging is closer to 500,000. That's right, HALF A MILLION have registered their opposition.
In a statement issued last night the Tobacco Manufacturers Association reported that:
This unprecedented response represents views from thousands of members of the public as well as retailers, packaging companies, marketing and design firms, manufacturers, wholesalers, politicians, employers, employees, business groups, trade unions, the Intellectual Property community, international business, trade associations and the law enforcement community.
Jaine Chisholm Caunt, secretary general of the TMA, commented:
“Plain packaging is an assault on UK business in the midst of a double dip recession. Plain packs would be far easier to copy, and would therefore be a gift to the criminal gangs behind the illegal trade in tobacco and increase the £3.1bn - £8.5m per day – that is currently lost to the UK Treasury as a result of this crime.
“At best, plain packaging will have no impact on youth smoking, as there is no credible evidence that packaging is a factor in underage smoking. At worst, it could actually increase youth smoking, by driving the availability of smuggled tobacco being sold by criminals in local communities.
These illegal traders do not care who they sell to, and frequently target children. The percentage of children who smoke in the UK is at an historic low – 5%. We feel the government should reduce this figure still further by tackling children’s access to tobacco, through greater investment in enforcement action and tougher penalties targeted at illegal tobacco gangs, and by making proxy purchasing of tobacco illegal, as it is for alcohol.”
See: Half a million oppose plain packaging
To avoid confusion, the figure of 500,000 includes the 236,033 people who signed the Hands Off Our Packs petition. According to the TMA, the total figure "is based on estimated responses into the consultation including signatures, postcards, letters, emails, online responses, consultation response forms etc, many of which have been sent directly to the Department of Health. We await final confirmation of the number of responses from the DH."
As I reported on Tuesday, Plain Packs Protect is claiming 203,114 supporters. According to the PPP website, "This number reflects the total amount of people who have signed up to support the plain packaging of tobacco products, via the Plain Packs Protect Partnership (logos below), British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK websites".
Update: Today's City AM features a short head-to-head style debate between me and Amanda Sandford of ASH. I wrote my piece before the half million figure was announced. See As Australia confirms a law banning branded tobacco packages, should the UK follow suit?.
Simon Clark
Guido Fawkes, Britain's most popular independent blogger, also has the story:
The Tobacco Manufacturers Association this morning revealed that a staggering half a million people have put their name to the campaign opposing plans to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes. The figure includes the 235,000 who signed the Hands Off Our Packs petition, and over another quarter of a million who contacted the Department of Health directly. They’re calling it the biggest response to a public consultation ever…
Reader Comments (11)
I have to say all credit to FOREST and HOOPS for an excellent campaign. For an issue which largely is not of great interest to the vast population, to keep the issue alive and motivate 500,000 to switch on their PCs and put pen to paper is to be admired.
Well done Simon and Angela.
I hope this major defeat for the tobacco control industry will teach government to get off our backs. As I wrote in my article in The Commentator "Drinkers, the obese, the fossil fueled industries and car drivers may take a deep breath."
As Simon says "Don't Panic" - I'm beginning to warm to this battle.....
There are a number of key actions we need to take:-
1. Contact your MP (written letter preferable) expressing your concern with the proposed legislation, explaining the unintended consequences that are likely to occur. What can we say to make politicians sit up and take note?
Although difficult to avoid, ranting will be counter productive, so concentrate your comments on the issues shown here and elsewhere (could Simon co-ordinate a list of key points to make through the Forest site since this probably has the highest profile amongst casual supporters of smoking freedom?).
Here are suggestions for 6 Key Points to raise about consequences of Plain Packs legislation:
i) will encourage counterfeit cigarettes getting into the legal supply chain. Such cigarettes will be of dubious provenance and quality control, which could contain contaminants (pesticides, fungicides, heavy metals, etc) far in excess of legally produced cigarettes, which could seriously impact smokers' health.
ii) ghastly pack images could well encourage a macho image for smoking amongst impressionable teenagers.
iii) will encourage the purchase of illegally supplied cigarettes with the same drawbacks for health, probably more so, than stated in i) above.
iv) likely to open up a whole new market for personalised cigarette packs incorporating cool and macho images and slogans. These are likely to actively promote the pleasure and benefits of smoking, will replace the drab Plain Packs, and encourage non-smokers, particularly the young, to try the pleasures of smoking.
v) in view of the potential impact of i) and iii) on smokers health, the Government, concerned as it is (!) with the health effects of smoking, will not wish to increase such risks and further burden the NHS in later years. It will therefore be essential for Government to set up a comprehensive and rigorous quality control monitoring programme for all official cigarette outlets across the country, particularly the smaller independent outlets where counterfeit cigarettes are likely to be more prevalent.
vi) make clear that the Government and individual politicians promoting this legislation should become personally responsible for any consequential injury to health, and that a Smokers Alliance will be formed with funding and legal support to sue for damages for any proven health imacts, much as company executives are responsible for "Health & Safety at Work" infringements.
2. As well as writing the letters to MPs and Councillors, we should run a competition NOW to find the best designs for personalised packetting - Example: to counter the current curled cigarette image suggesting impotence, (which smokers know is a load of bollocks), a logo such as "Smoking makes you Hard" would seem quite appropriate placed on an suitably macho background image (nothing so unsubtle as an erect penis, of course). This slogan would also be true, since sufffering much abuse as smokers becomes character building, and the cold winter weather really does harden you up!
At last we would have a way to hit back at all the bullying, harassment, indignities and heaped degradation we have suffered since 2007.
Politicians should be left in no doubt as to the unintended consequences likely to follow such pointless legislation.
A number of people deserve credit for the success of the campaign to date (too many to list here). In addition I'd like to thank everyone who took the trouble to respond.
The job is only half done however. There's a long way to go but we have demonstrated - conclusively I believe - that the claim that "the public supports plain packaging" is quite simply wrong.
Yes, very well done all and thank you.
Given that we know that the Tobacco Control Industry just makes it all up as it goes along its ideological route to ruin the lives of adult smokers, I'm guessing that by some miracle they will suddenly find another 250,000 supporters from thin air.
They can invent numbers and information because, after all, no one scrutinises their manipulations.
As it stands, it's comforting to hear that there are more tolerant and fair people than smokerphobic nutters in the UK. The Govt should take note. It is on the wrong side and it will lose the next election, never to be elected ever again, if it does not start listening to the electorate and not the anti-smoker political lobby groups that masquerade as "charities" but have their own self interests at heart.
We have given a resounding message - ASH does not speak in our name and it must stop pretending to do so.
In respect of Plain Packs Protects figure of 203,114, I do wonder how many duplicate names are in those combined petitions. I mean, how many people signed both CRUK's and PPP's (were these the same petition or truly separate)?
Furthermore, I know for a fact that people outside of the UK were signing CRUK's petition. I saw them say so on Twitter (some lady from Sweden, for instance, was tweeting CRUK's petition in Swedish -- I called her out on it). Also, we have seen ASH Australia call for Australians to sign other countries' petitions (I did blog about that).
My point is that I do not trust PPP's signature count. It's very likely inflated with dodgy signatures.
Not directly related to the plain packaging issue, admittedly (apologies to Simon), but I think the following brief item from 'Future News' might be of some interest to readers:
"Referring to Nick Clegg’s recent ‘admission of defeat’ over the proposed Children’s Tobacco Surchage, Triumvirate Leader Sir David Cameron today praised his partner’s “courage,humility,and far-sightedness.”
The reduction from 300 to 200 percent means that the price of a typical pack of ‘superkings’ will now only be £20.24, rather than the £26.61 proposed by health lobbyists.
“It’s a 21st century solution to a problem not of our making”, he said: “This is a move which will benefit everyone – especially those on low incomes.”
“Both as a Conservative and as the leader of a listening government, I’m as committed to individual liberty as I ever was: after all, I used to be a smoker myself ! But people must learn that they have to pay for their freedoms – especially where others’ lives are put at risk by them. I’m a Nudger, not a Controller.”
On the subject of the ‘guillotining’ of the Monarchy (Abolition) Bill, and the house arrest of 34 Tory backbenchers and peers, Sir David was equally upbeat…"
Have ASH given up on plain packaging? I ask because on their website there's nothing about plain packaging on the front page, nor under 'current policy issues'. If you do a search you can find a briefing, but it's mysteriously out of date - it refers to a 100,000 favourable responses to an earlier government consultation on plain packaging, but is silent on the half million unfavourable responses in this one. Is it game over?
If by chance this abhorrant caper of plain packs comes into force, I'd say a nice little earner will emerge for the entrepreneur who will resurrect the cigarette case, it could be anything from plastic to silver or gold even platinum.
It could even become a status symbol, just like in the false boom times.
And you could tap your fag on the lid before you put it into your gob.
Just like Humphry Bogard.
Ann -
An even nicer 'earner' would be the Private Smokers' Club (eg a luxuriously re-appointed urban pub).
I'm sure the Bohemian/Libertarian members of society WOULD 'come flooding back' then ! And not one single po-faced Anti in sight. Just imagine.
But I fear that, such is the grip our Masters have on Reality- and our dosy Public's perception of it - that an Imaginary World of Freedom is all we now have to look forward to.
In our Prison Society, it seems, all but a handful of the Inmates have gone stir-crazy. And the prospect of Getting Out terrifies the life out of them.
Game of ping-pong, anyone ?
When has any recent government listened to reason? This ludicrous legislation will go through, and will ,of course, be deemed a great success......
Surely it must be ‘plain’ to everyone by now that the (global) Anti-Smoking Crusade has attracted to its ranks exactly the same type of person as those earlier Anti-Islamic Crusades of which (so one is informed) we are now ashamed: the Fanatical, the Righteous, the Naïve, the Greedy, the Rapacious, and the Socially and Geo-Politically Ignorant.
Then, it was the Vatican, the Priesthood, and a Landed Aristocracy
which drove events.
Today, it’s the World Health Organisation, the Medical Experts, and a Salaried Oligarchy (pretending to be something else).
Same people – different job description.
A fascinating historical symmetry (albeit only one among several).
At least they haven’t started dropping bombs on the Tobacco-Lovers of Christendom yet. Only on Muslims – indiscriminately (ie smoking and non-smoking alike).
Perhaps we should be expressing our gratitude, rather than churlishly expecting to be treated as Free Men ?
For ‘churls’, you see, is what we still are - with a few modern add-ons.
History, folks - and how our Masters LOVE to be seen making it…