Why cigarette packs matter

http://www.badscience.net/2011/03/why-cigarette-packs-matter/

by baha_man • 15 years ago

79 35 15 years ago

lachyg• 15 years ago

Australia is great in regards to cigarettes. On all packets, it shows gruesome images of what happens to you if you smoke, all labels are black with a standardised white text, so no brand recognition. They're all behind a blacked out cabinet too.

See: http://www.google.com.au/images?q=australian+cigarette+packa...

defroost• 15 years ago

Man, you would think that almost ghoulish imagery in the URL you posted would keep people from buying cigarettes, but I imagine people still buy them in droves nonetheless. I like that at least the Australian government doesn't cave to the Tobacco companies.

ugh2• 15 years ago

Addiction’s a bitch. I don’t smoke but I tend to eat too much with predictable consequences I know full well about. It is possible for me to keep my eating in control (I have for nearly six months now and am very proud of that) but that demands tons of strong, strong, strong willpower. It’s exhausting and I will have to keep that will strong for the rest of my life.

cameronh90• 15 years ago

I don't smoke, but I don't think that imagery would stop me buying cigarettes if I did. I know how horrific the potential consequences of riding a motorcycle or driving a car look, but I still do that. The insides of even a relatively healthy old person won't look particularly pleasant either.

The fact is, people will be aware that not everyone who smokes ends up looking like those images, which will help them ignore them; "It'll never happen to me", regardless of how likely it actually is.

mootothemax• 15 years ago

On all packets, it shows gruesome images of what happens to you if you smoke

Which I believe does more harm than good. I know plenty of smokers who get through a pack a day; do you think this is more likely to inform smokers about health risks that they're not already aware of, or is it more likely to desensitise them to these risks?

I'm also curious to know who behind this plan doesn't remember being a 10-year-old and being fascinated by everything disgusting.

bpyne2• 15 years ago

The entry point for new smokers is a little older than 10. I think it's more like the early teen years. At that point, I think the "gruesome is cool" phase has abated a bit. Besides, the attraction towards gruesome has to war with young people's preference for sweet tastes. There is nothing sweet about the smell of cigarette smoke. It's incredibly bitter and acrid smelling. The smell was one major reason I never tried tobacco despite both my parents being smokers.

To catch young people in their market, I think tobacco companies focus more on teens' need for social belonging and defining their identity.

JonnieCache• 15 years ago

Nice to see ben goldacre's writings up on here. He is a clinical epistemologist by training but he has rapidly moved into the world of science journalism (or perhaps meta-journalism) due to his popularity as a writer and speaker.

shrikant• 15 years ago

He also has a secondary blog where he posts "things that are too long to post on twitter and not clever enough to post on his main blog": http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/

rmc• 15 years ago

Yeah, Ben Goldacre is a great read. If you are interested in bad science from a medical angle (as opposed to 'creationists are being silly' kind), then check out his book Bad Science or the rest of his website

gjm11• 15 years ago

A clinical epistemologist?

(He's a psychiatrist.)

splat• 15 years ago

The thing I find interesting is the FDA's blatant hostility towards electronic cigarettes despite their demonstrated health benefits over ordinary cigarettes (light or otherwise). [1] [2] Electronic cigarettes simply vaporize nicotine and deliver the nicotine straight to the user with at most trace amounts of tar and carcinogens. A number of studies and at least one meta-study [3] have all found that electronic cigarettes are much safer (for real humans, not smoking machines), and that smokers can quit more easily using electronic cigarettes than with nicotine patches or gum. Why this agency, which is entrusted with protecting the public health, is hell-bent on keeping smokers on regular cigarettes rather than their safer alternative is beyond me.

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/10/science/la-sci-e-cig...

[2] www.hsph.harvard.edu/centers-institutes/population-development/files/article.jphp.pdf

[3] http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/7/36/abstract

xiaoma• 15 years ago

The article didn't mention either the FDA or electronic cigarettes.

abalashov• 15 years ago

It didn't have to for the parent's comment to be worthwhile.

rdtsc• 15 years ago

> The thing I find interesting is the FDA's blatant hostility towards electronic cigarettes despite their demonstrated health benefits

It is only surprising if you assume that FDA is a consumer-friendly agency, which exists to protect consumers and keep them safe. In reality I think they are heavily lobbied and influenced otherwise (via a revolving personnel door for ex.) by large drug companies, agro-businesses and big tobacco.

Groxx• 15 years ago

There's definite unfounded, likely highly-funded, hostility towards them. There is a single legitimate cause for concern that I've heard them occasionally mention, however: there haven't been any / many health studies on inhaling nicotine, and what it does to your lungs. Only smoking things which contain it. It's essentially an unknown, so there's definite reason for pause before they approve it... but yes, phenomenally excessive.

Lost_BiomedE• 15 years ago

There has been a lot of studies confirming the safety of snus, and they are just as hostile to it as anything. I don't think they would change their tune even if there were plenty of studies.

JulianMorrison2• 15 years ago

If they were as hostile to all tobacco/nicotine products as they deserved, then for whatever value of illegal heroin is, tobacco/nicotine should be about equally illegal.

Cigarettes, cigars and pipes got grandfathered in. Gum and patches are medical. But I suspect their reflexive "no drugs for fun" attitude is applying to anything else.

hammock• 15 years ago

If you wonder whether the FDA is in bed with Big Tobacco or not look no further than the landmark, but largely ignored, FDA Tobacco Bill passed in June 2009.

This bill was reported in the media as an anti-smoking bill, but believe it or not, it is a pro-Big Tobacco bill. What this bill does is grandfather in the major cigarette manufacturers and protect them from all future lawsuits, since their cigarettes are now "approved by the FDA." Meanwhile, it puts up huge barriers to entry for any other competing companies, thereby guaranteeing government-supported oligopolistic profits for 100 years to come - the alternative of course is to not pass this bill, and instead watch the tobacco companies slowly die into oblivion, as they have been for the past twenty years. Instead, we are propping them up.

This bill is unnecessary, does not punish tobacco companies, and gives the FDA powers that it should never have. This bill has been a long time coming, though, and had a lot of support in both houses of Congress before passage.

Read this editorial, it is short and very informative if you really want to know what this bill is all about.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882121714933013.html

subwindow• 15 years ago

Somehow I doubt that the packaging really influences what someone smokes and how much they smoke of it. People make decisions based on taste, strength and habit more than they do on marketing and especially pack design.

If someone's smoking, they've already made the decision to do it, health consequences be damned. I doubt that warning labels, gross pictures or any other kind of package manipulation has a significant effect.

Zak• 15 years ago

It probably has more of an effect on starting and quitting than brand selection by current smokers.

dedward2• 15 years ago

Yes, smokers smoke despite knowing full well how bad it is for them, more or less. Gross pictures won't make them stop for the most part. It might make a kid think twice - IIRC it mostly made poeple want to collect them all. Plenty of people bought certain brands just because of how the pack looks - it's branding and packaging like anything else.

The primary goal in anti-smoking campaigns is to stop young people from starting in the first place - over time that's the best money spent.

Take a look at the British Columbia anti-smoking campaigns - lowest rate of new smokers in north america (IIRC).

Tobacco can't sponsor events. No more Benson & Hedges symphony of fire fireworks competition in Vancouver - now it's sponsored by a bank or something.

Stores that sell cigarettes (grocery stores, corner stores, 7-11, etc) can't have them visible to the customers in any way, and can't advertise the fact that they sell them. Basically their marketing was nipped in the bud. They can sell them, but no advertising of any kind)

And you know what? it works.

Then you reach a critical mass where there are enough people NOT smoking that it's just not cool to smoke....

that was after no smoking in bars, restaurants, any indoor public places, within X feet of the door of any store, etc......

mitcheme• 15 years ago

"Stores that sell cigarettes (grocery stores, corner stores, 7-11, etc) can't have them visible to the customers in any way, and can't advertise the fact that they sell them."

I was curious about this, because I live in BC and realized that I hadn't seen cigarettes in a store for a long time. I'm a non-smoker, but growing up gas stations and pharmacies always had the big glass case behind the counter full of cigarettes, and it recently its seemed odd that they weren't there anymore. So I looked it up, and they're only allowed a small, plain sign with no brands or graphics, just kinds of tobacco and prices. In hindsight, I remember seeing those in one or two places, but I'd assumed it was just store policy.

It does seem to work. I think I've run across a handful of smokers at my university in three years, and many of them I only knew were smokers because they stank so much. Definitely not cool to smoke around these parts. Right now the university has just restricted the allowed smoking areas even further, and unlike when the government smoking restrictions came in, nobody really cares. This is a student body that half consists of people who hold protests over every political concern, and half 'apolitical' people who complain at length about every new fee or university restriction, so when nobody cares about a change that really says something.

kristofferR• 15 years ago

That's probably true in developed countries where everyone knows the dangers of smoking. However, people in a lot of undeveloped countries are actually still unaware of how dangerous it is to smoke.

On a related note, I found this black cigarette package, Death ™, quite cool. They're honest at least: http://www.sadanduseless.com/2009/08/black-death-cigarettes/

"DEATH™ is a responsible way to market a legally available consumer product which kills people when used exactly as intended"

handelaar• 15 years ago

So use of lighter colours and white packaging a la Marlboro 'Lights', as they were known here until recently, is taken objectively to be a Bad Thing.

Why isn't anybody asking, then, on what grounds we think that replacing all cigarette packaging with plain white boxes wouldn't make things worse ?

araneae• 15 years ago

Oh come on.

You can't translate these studies into real world results at all. If you hand people two cigarette packs and say "which one looks healthier," sure, they're going to pick one. They might even pick one over the other pretty consistently.

This does not necessarily translate into real world consequences at all. You have to prove that.

pokjhnboi• 15 years ago

I assume the same thing is going to happen to the other social drug of choice?

All those enticing pictures of Chateaus are going to be replaced by a plain white bottle and a picture of a car crash caused by drunk driver?

JulianMorrison2• 15 years ago

I propose: that by law every one in a thousand cigarettes sold should have something that tastes and smells really spit-and-gag foul (but isn't poisonous) inserted at a random point (not just at the tip, or the end, but unpredictably). Light, mild, silver, one brand or another - there is no difference. You have a chance of running into the disincentive whichever you choose.

Why cigarette packs matter

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