BUYING ETHICALLY PRODUCED FOOD
,
and making a statement about
yourself by doing so, is now so easy it
requires little or no thought. Thinking
about where your narcotics come
from, on the other hand, is so difficult
it’s simply easier not to do so… We are,
it seems, living in the age of the
wonky moral compass: of middle-
class couples who swear by their
weekly organic veg box, and yet
relax after dinner with a line
of something produced by
impoverished, subjugated
Bolivian peasants.
Jay Rayner,
Guardian
, 19
August
CREATING A FUG OF
CONFUSION
, Public Health
England suggests e-
cigarettes should be dished out
by the NHS, while the Welsh
Government says they should
be banned in enclosed public places.
The
Mail
believes both are wrong… In
different ways, both Public Health
England and Labour-run Wales are
behaving like nannies. How about
treating the public like grown-ups?
Mail
editorial, 20 August
THE ‘PUBLIC HEALTH’ LOBBY
is a
lumbering beast that goes from one
extreme to another. If it is not trying to
ban something, it is trying to subsidise
it. What e-cigarettes and their users
really need is to be left alone.
Christopher Snowdon,
Telegraph
,
19 August
TOBACCO
is the largest single cause of
preventable deaths in England –
e-cigarettes may have a part to play to
curb tobacco use. But the reliance by
PHE on work that the authors
themselves accept is methodologically
weak, and which is made all the more
perilous by the declared conflicts of
interest surrounding its funding,
raises serious questions not only
about the conclusions of the PHE
report, but also about the quality of
the agency’s peer review process. PHE
claims that it protects and improves
the nation’s health and wellbeing. To
do so, it needs to rely on the highest
quality evidence. On this occasion, it
has fallen short of its mission.
Lancet
editorial, 29 August
OUR DESCENDANTS WILL WONDER
if
we were ourselves drugged as well as
unhinged when, in future times, they
mourn and regret our irreversible folly
in legalising this dreadful poison
[cannabis]. Haven’t alcohol and
tobacco done enough damage, and
made enough profit for cruel and
greedy people?
Peter Hitchens,
Mail on Sunday
,
23 August
AS SOMEONE WHO CHOOSES
to not
drink, I have become acutely aware of
how alcocentric the UK is, and how
drinking is consistently tied in with
having fun and being happy and
relaxed. The predominant message is
that alcohol is a prerequisite for
letting your hair down and living it up.
Lucy Rocca,
Guardian
, 12 August
leading tobacco control researchers, is
now echoing the line being taken by
Chapman and others that plain
packaging should not be seen as a
stand-alone policy in itself: ‘Despite the
expected benefits of plain packaging, it
is important to remember that it will be
most effective as part of a
comprehensive tobacco control strategy
that includes other policies, such as
access to stop-smoking services,
restrictions on sales to young people
and effective taxation.’
If Chapman and Maynard are right,
we may never know what impact the
policy has had over and above the other
tobacco control measures that have
been robustly adopted in Australia. Not
knowing whether it has actually
reduced smoker numbers will not
satisfy countries that are considering
whether they too should follow the
Australian government in implementing
a similar policy.
Neil McKeganey is director of the
Centre for Drug Misuse Research, Glasgow
September 2015 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 15
Comment
SINCE ANNOUNCING IN 2012
that all
tobacco products had to be packaged in
plain form, bearing large graphic health
warnings, but with no brand imagery,
the Australian government has been
under a legal requirement to provide a
review of the impact of the policy.
The clear aim of the plain packaging
policy was to reduce smoking prevalence
by – reducing the appeal of branded
cigarette packs to young people, by
removing the brand imagery that might
make it that much harder for smokers to
quit their habit, and by removing the
various logos and colouring that might
convey the impression that some
cigarettes are less harmful than others.
Siggins Miller, a private consultancy
firm funded by the Australian
government to contribute to the review,
has been carrying out a survey of
Australians asking them about their
views of plain packaging. But the
Siggins Miller review is all about what
people think plain packaging may have
achieved in changing smoking
perceptions, rather than assessing
whether it has worked to reduce
smoker numbers.
Professor Simon Chapman, one of
Australia’s leading tobacco control
advocates and a bullish supporter of
plain packaging, has stated that plain
packaging ‘might well function as a
“slow burn”, distal negative factor
against smoking, [rather] than as a
precipitating proximal factor.’
Dr Olivia Maynard, one of the UK’s
The news, and the skews, in the national media
Has tobacco plain
packaging actually worked,
asks Neil McKeganey
MEDIA SAVVY
‘Plain
packaging
might well
function as a
“slow burn”,
distal negative
factor against
smoking.’
Plain talk
