Tag Archives: plain packaging

Dear Editor, ASH Ireland welcomes the positive news from the review of the implementation of Tobacco Plain Packaging in Australia, published last week.

New Irish research published in BMJ Open has found that young people aged 16-17 years old believe standardised packs to be less attractive and their cigarettes to be more harmful than packs with EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) labels, which includes picture and text warning covering 65 per cent of the packages.

 A proposed free trade agreement between the EU and the US could assist the tobacco industry in its attempts to block the Government implementing plain packaging regulations.

Standardised or plain packaging of cigarettes featuring large health warnings encouraged more smokers in Australia to think about and attempt quitting smoking, new research has revealed.

The Policy Group on Tobacco and the Faculty of Public Health Medicine at the RCPI has welcomed the news that Ireland became the first country in Europe and the second in the world to pass plain packaging laws for tobacco products.

Smokers’ support for plain packaging of tobacco products rose sharply after they were introduced in Australia, according to a study published online in the journal Tobacco Control.

Plain packs for tobacco products don’t hurt small retailers, flood the market with very cheap cigarettes, or boost the trade in illicit tobacco, finds research on the early experience of the policy in Australia, and published in the online journal BMJ Open.

The Minister for Health has indicated there will be no specific cost to the Exchequer related to the introduction of standard packaging.

The Government has approved the publication of the Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2014 and the presentation of the Bill in the Seanad.

By Dara Gantly and Lloyd Mudiwa.