Tag Archives: plain packaging

Judy Abel

Opinion: Plain Packaging: Will Tobacco Be the End or Just the Beginning?

By Judy Abel | Thu 26th March 2015 - 8:55 am

While I think I was pleased to see the vote by MPs earlier this month, introducing plain packaging for tobacco products, it did also set off faint alarm bells – with me at least. There is something rather drastic about passing a law that requires legally produced and distributed goods to be wrapped in plain card or paper – even if the move was approved by Parliament based on medical evidence. I almost feel it would have been better to actually ban tobacco products altogether.

To be honest, obesity is not that far behind smoking as a leading cause of early death. We know that obesity is partly fuelled by attractively-packaged foods, high in sugar and fat, freely available on every supermarket shelf in the UK. High-street fast food chains – whose rise has been, seemingly, unstoppable – are another contributor to the problem. Britain now spends over £45 billion each year dealing with the health and social care costs associated with an increasingly overweight population.  

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 34 Comments
Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes…Standardised cigarette packaging – reviewing the evidence, or just kicking the can down the road?

By Paul Burstow | Thu 28th November 2013 - 4:13 pm

The news today that the Coalition Government is launching an independent review of the evidence for standardised packaging is welcome. It marks an important shift from the position Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt took in July that he would wait until the “emerging impact of the decision in Australia can be measured”. Australia of course led the world when the previous Government, with all Party support, introduced standardised packaging in December last year.

More welcome still is that news that the Government will take the legal powers to introduce standardised packaging in the Children and Families Bill

A four month review …

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Posted in Op-eds | 9 Comments
Stephen Williams

Stephen Williams writes: Stand up to Big Tobacco and help us win a vote in Parliament

By Stephen Williams | Tue 10th September 2013 - 2:55 pm

1920s woman in silk kimono smoking using a cigarette holderCalling all Voting Reps – Vote for Emergency Motion 7 on Tobacco Plain Packaging

At this year’s autumn conference in Glasgow Lib Dem voting reps have the chance to change history, to go up against Big Tobacco and their secretive lobbyists, some of them at the heart of the Tory Party, and to help us win a vote in Parliament to protect young people from tobacco advertising. Nearly two thirds of smokers started before they were 18.

Currently tobacco companies can market …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 89 Comments
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