Canadian health groups today praised the
Australian health minister, Nicola Roxon, for
introducing legislation that will require plain
packaging of cigarettes sold in Australia and
will increase the size of health warnings to
over 75% of the front and 90% of the back of the
package.
"The Australian government has moved ahead of
every other country with respect to protecting
its citizens from tobacco marketing," said
Melodie Tilson, Director of Policy with the
Non-Smokers' Rights Association. "As the first
country to stand firm against the political
pressure and threats made by tobacco companies,
Australia's leadership will have global
benefit."
"The benefits of plain and standardized
packaging for tobacco products are well
established," said Cynthia Callard, Executive
Director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada.
"This is a health measure supported at the
international level by the World Health
Organization's global public health treaty, the
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control."
"Health Canada's proposals to increase the
size of health warnings on packages sold in
Canada to 75% of the package front and back will
have an enormous beneficial health impact," said
Ms. Tilson, "But the impact would be even
greater if tobacco promotions were
simultaneously removed from packaging." Health
Canada recently conducted research which
confirmed that health warnings were more
effective on plain packaging. "We encourage the
next government to give priority to
strengthening new health warnings by removing
branding from tobacco packaging."
The groups noted that plain and standardized
packaging is consistent with the Harper
government's goals for the renewal of the
federal tobacco control strategy. The Minister
of Health, the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq,
announced
on March 25th that her department is looking for
"innovative approaches" to tobacco control and
is seeking to "ensure Canada remains a world
leader in tobacco control."