The Guardian 14 November, 2007
Government fails
to regulate cigarette marketing
Peter Mac
Within the last two weeks rapid actions were taken to ban the sale of a children’s toy which was found to contain the potentially lethal drug "ecstasy". However, similar action cannot be taken to regulate tobacco products, because legislation to allow the government to do so has never been passed.
Dr Nigel Gray, an adviser to the World Health Organisation, has recommended that Australia should follow the lead of the US Government and empower its food and drug administration to regulate cigarette admissions. He has pointed out that procedures have now been developed which enable two of the most toxic chemicals to be removed from cigarette tobacco.
The Howard Government has refused to take any such action, and has also refused to regulate the marketing of the "heatbar", a new tobacco product which electronically heats, but does not burn, the tobacco it contains. The federal minister responsible for the government’s drug and alcohol policy said that the government does not even intend to investigate the product.
Dr Gray slammed the government’s failure to regulate carcinogens in cigarettes, even though "Controls apply to almost every marketed product, … even the amount of mint allowed in nicotine replacement therapy."
Corporate aggression, government inaction
Some regulations do apply to the sale of tobacco products. Warnings about the health hazards of cigarettes must now be included on packaging, and state governments mostly ban cigarette point-of-sale marketing displays.
One exception is Tasmania, where a one square metre cigarette packet display may be maintained. A number of anti-smoking organisations have called for the banning of these displays, as part of their Protecting Children from Tobacco campaign.
Tobacco industry documents reveal that the displays are intended to stimulate the purchase of cigarette products, despite industry statements to the contrary.
"Allowing a square metre of display would leave this deadly and addictive product in the faces of children — in thousands of supermarkets, convenience stores, newsagents, petrol stations, tobacconists and other shops", Dr Harley Stanton, President of the Asia Pacific Association for the Control of Tobacco pointed out.
"Research shows retail displays normalise tobacco to children and predispose them towards smoking. If every child smoker is one too many, then every square metre of tobacco display is a square metre too much."
(The rate of smoking is rising in Tasmania, while it is falling in other states. Some 12 percent of Tasmanian children smoke regularly, and 14 percent of these children get their supplies illegally.)
Addicted to greed
There are other moves to limit smoking hazards. There have, for example, been recent calls for the banning of smoking in cars.
However, the tobacco industry has a very long history of vigorously resisting any attempts to control its activities, especially where these would interfere with profit-making.
In the 1960s it was one of several industries which investigated "subliminal advertising", in which images of a product would be flashed on a film or TV screen. Viewers not being conscious of its presence but could still subconsciously register the image and still influenced by it (a practice recently revived in Australia).
The industry also established bogus "scientific" organisations in order to discredit the ever growing mountain of scientific evidence linking smoking to ill health.
In Australia some 20 years ago the industry persuaded the government to drop a very effective anti-smoking advertising campaign. (Remember the young woman declining to clinch with her cigarette-addicted boyfriend because "It’s like kissing an exhaust pipe"?)
In recent years the industry has attempted to block anti-smoking bans in the workplace and in clubs. The internet system is now showing film clips in which young people declare that smoking is really cool and doesn’t affect your health. These clips are, in effect, ads for the industry, but industry representatives have declared that none of their members placed them on the Net.
The industry is certainly not threatened by anti-smoking action from the Federal Government. Last week Christopher Pyne, the Federal Minister for Ageing, rejected the suggestion that the industry should be subjected to government regulation. With a perfectly straight face he declared that regulating cigarettes or tobacco products "would undermine the message that all cigarettes are harmful, and that quitting is the only option to avoid smoking illnesses".
A representative of the Cancer Council of Australia has described this failure to act as an effective endorsement of cigarettes. The conclusion is inevitable. In order for Australia to give up cigarettes on a national level, it will first have to give up the Howard Government.