Plain Packaging Advocates Can't Even Agree With Each Other!

A highly-observant fellow jewel robber sent me this document last week, a revealing part of which I tweeted here.

It is the latest of many progress reports from the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies (UKCTCS) and takes a while to plough through. It's worth it, though, not just for an insight into what these people are wasting our taxes on, but also for contravening idiotic claims being spouted by tobacco control in defence of the plain packs campaign.

Take this nonsense, for example, which we've already had a lot of fun with here.

Myth #7: It may be tobacco today but other consumer products will follow

FACT: Tobacco is not like any other product, it is the only legal consumer product on the market which is lethal when used as intended. That is why the UK and over 170 other governments have signed up to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which places legal obligations on governments to strictly regulate tobacco products. Plain packs for tobacco will not therefore set a precedent for other consumer products

Bzzz. Objection.

Not really confirmed by the UKCTCS. You see, they're actively working to set up as many precedents as they possibly can.

FP31 - Application of tobacco control experience to alcohol and food: In progress: Funding secured to develop independent alcohol strategy for the UK, building on tobacco control lessons; group of tobacco and alcohol researchers (including UKCTCS members), advocates and clinicians is developing the strategy for publication late 2012.

Presumably why we've seen many examples of tobacco control tactics transferred to alcohol recently, and also signs of the same for certain foods.

UKCTCS also make a mockery of Deborah Arnott's February claim - with fingers firmly crossed behind her back, one must assume - that plain packaging won't set a precedent for the same in other areas.

"[...] The “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false. The same argument was used against the ban on tobacco advertising, but 9 years after the tobacco ban in the UK, alcohol advertising is still permitted with no sign of it being prohibited."

Perhaps she should be networking more with the UKCTCS, then. Because they disagree vehemently.

FP44 - Continue research and advocacy work to ensure maximal representation of effective tobacco control measures in government policy and NHS service provision. Continue to expand our work into prevention of harmful use of alcohol, and obesity prevention.

Achieved:

(5) Provided input to alcohol policy through working with the Alcohol Health Alliance and Alcohol Focus Scotland in particular to make the case for minimum unit pricing of alcohol and restrictions on alcohol promotion.

Here's the current position of the AHA on 'alcohol promotion', which Alcohol Focus Scotland are presumably happy with.

Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA), said extreme measures were required to "reset society's norms" and protect children from marketing messages which glamorise drinking and fuel excess consumption.

He said: "We know that young people are heavily affected by advertising and marketing. The evidence shows that when children are exposed to adverts they tend to drink at an earlier age, to drink more, and are more likely to end up developing a problem with alcohol in later life."

Revealing, huh?

You see, throughout the whole plain packs campaign Debs and her pals have been absolutely certain that packaging is a form of advertising and marketing, 'the most ubiquitous', in fact. Specifically to children, too. They have been in no doubt.

So here are the UKCTCS advising the AHA and others how to go about banning advertising and marketing of alcohol products, which presumably must include the packaging.

Either tobacco control is advising anti-alcohol campaigners how to ban marketing to kids - which includes colours and branding according to Arnott et al, and therefore rubbishes her 'no domino effect' claim - or they're not including colours and branding for alcohol, which rubbishes the plain packs campaign's claim that they are a form of advertising/marketing and should be banned. For the children.

Isn't it fun seeing so many state-funded lobbyists treading on each other's toes, eh?