PLAIN PACKAGING OF CIGARETTES

Thursday, 22nd of January 2015

As the British government considers proposals to adopt plain packaging for cigarettes, attention turns to the experience of Australia, which introduced plain packaging in 2012. Comparing data for 2011 and 2013, the authors of this article from the state of Victoria, published in BMJ Open, conclude that none of the unintended consequences predicted by the tobacco industry happened.

It is notable that the conservative prime ministers of both Australia and the United Kingdom favor this legislation. In the US, home to the world’s largest tobacco company, would such legislation have a chance?

EARLY EVIDENCE ABOUT THE PREDICTED UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF STANDARDISED PACKAGING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS IN AUSTRALIA: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE PLACE OF PURCHASE, REGULAR BRANDS AND USE OF ILLICIT TOBACCO

- Author Affiliations

Cancer Council Victoria, Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Correspondence to Dr Michelle Scollo; mscollo@cancervic.org.au

Abstract below; full text is at

http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/8/e005873.full?sid=179cd9af-b2f0-4e67-afac-8b07164d5c31

Objectives To test for early evidence whether, following the standardisation of tobacco packaging, smokers in Australia were—as predicted by the tobacco industry—less likely to purchase from small mixed business retailers, more likely to purchase cheap brands imported from Asia and more likely to use illicit tobacco.

Design Serial cross-sectional population telephone surveys in November 2011 (a year prior to implementation), 2012 (during roll-out) and 2013 (a year after implementation).

Setting/participants Smokers aged 18 years and over identified in an annual population survey in the Australian state of Victoria (2011: n=754; 2012: n=590; 2013: n=601).

Main outcome measures Changes between 2011 and 2013 in: proportions of current smokers who purchased their last cigarette from discount outlets such as supermarkets compared with small mixed business retail outlets; prevalence of regular use of low-cost brands imported from Asia and use of unbranded tobacco.

Results The proportion of smokers purchasing from supermarkets did not increase between 2011 (65.4%) and 2013 (65.7%; p=0.98), and the percentage purchasing from small mixed business outlets did not decline (2011: 9.2%; 2012: 11.2%; p=0.32). The prevalence of low-cost Asian brands was low and did not increase between 2011 (1.1%) and 2013 (0.9%; p=0.98). The proportion reporting current use of unbranded illicit tobacco was 2.3% in 2011 and 1.9% in 2013 (p=0.46). In 2013, 2.6% of cigarette smokers reported having purchased one or more packets of cigarettes in non-compliant packaging in the past 3 months; 1.7% had purchased one or more packets from an informal seller in the past year.

Conclusions One year after implementation, this study found no evidence of the major unintended consequences concerning loss of smoker patrons from small retail outlets, flooding of the market by cheap Asian brands and use of illicit tobacco predicted by opponents of plain packaging in Australia.

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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