No limit to this prohibitionist madness

If you thought the idea of health warnings on individual cigarettes was a joke, wait for this.

In Ireland last month Fine Gael’s spokesman on health Colm Burke urged the government to limit the number of cigarettes sold in a pack to 20:

“For more than 20 years, a mixture of smoking controls, plain packaging, advertising bans, taxation and effective public health measures have all contributed to a significant reduction in cigarette smoking in Ireland.

“However, tobacco companies are constantly looking for opportunities to circumvent these anti-smoking measures and one way of doing so is by increasing the number of cigarettes sold in a packet.

“There’s currently a ban on selling less than 20 cigarettes in a packet, but there is no ban on selling packets containing greater than 20, with many companies selling cigarettes in packets of 23, 28 or 35.”

Yesterday, as a member of the Joint Committee on Health, Burke raised the issue again during a meeting that marked the start of the pre-legislative scrutiny of the much delayed Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill.

In response a Department of Health official said there was no evidence that larger packs lead to increased consumption. 

Even if there was (and there isn’t!) the number of cigarettes in a pack should still be a matter of choice rather than government diktat.

If it’s for their own personal use adults should be allowed to buy however many cigarettes they like. Likewise, if there is demand for packs with more than 20, convenience stores and supermarkets should be allowed to sell them.

As Forest Ireland spokesman John Mallon pointed out in a statement yesterday:

"Tobacco is a legal product and the sale of packs with more than 20 cigarettes is in response to customer demand.”

He added:

"First they banned packs of ten cigarettes. Now they want to ban packs that contain more than 20. It's absurd.

"Is it any wonder that so many smokers are driven to the black market if this is how legitimate consumers are treated by politicians?"

As it happens Ireland was among the first countries in Europe to ban ten-packs (in 2008) even though we argued that the smaller pack was often bought by smokers who wanted to reduce their consumption en route to quitting.

In mitigation politicians and anti-smoking campaigners claimed that a ban on ten-packs would deter children from smoking because they would be less able to afford a larger pack.

Now it’s the turn of larger packs to come under attack despite there being even less evidence to justify it.

You couldn’t make it up.

Comments

[C. B.]

When will governments simply leave adults alone to make their own damned decisions? I am so fed up with prohibitionist bullshit!
C. B.