Matthew Carlson writes about the fight against tobacco companies
Tobacco companies are known to target children and young people to create new waves of smoking addicts, but new laws being implemented this September aim to fight back against these callous forms of advertising.
Plain packaging legislation will come into force this autumn, under the Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Act 2015, and is believed to make cigarettes and rolling tobacco less appealing – particularly for first time smokers. With smoking so prevalent in Ireland, prominent tobacco fighting organisation ASH Ireland is continuously campaigning for measures that protect families from tobacco.
Most people think that they know the effects of smoking and while they might know how they are impacting their own body, they might not know the effect that they are having on the people around them, their friends and family.
Recent studies estimate that 18% of the Irish population are daily smokers, which means that if each one of those smokers’ smoke in the presence of another person, over one third of the population is at risk for tobacco related diseases, of which over €1 billion are spent treating each year by the State. According to the advocacy group ASH Ireland, people who quit smoking can save up to €4,000 annually, and there are no downsides to quitting.
Dr Patrick Doorley is the chairperson for the ASH Board Members and has been training in public medicine since 1984. Dr Doorley refers to the addiction of smoking “insidious yet powerful”. “It’s a very powerful addiction and most adults for example have to take multiple attempts to quit, six or more times is not unusual, they underestimate the power of tobacco,” said Dr Doorley. He continues that most start smoking young and don’t try to quit until their 20’s, 30’s or 40’s and by that time they are long addicted.
Marketing attempts
One of the goals of ASH Ireland and other organisations like it are to denormalise smoking as well as making Ireland’s outdoors smoke-free. One of the most recent attempts to make this a reality has been the implementation of plain packaging of tobacco products in Ireland, which entails the removal of all branding on these products so that different brands of cigarettes and other tobacco products are almost indistinguishable from other brands. Part of the reason that anti-tobacco organisations are so in favour of this is because of the strong marketing attempts of the tobacco industry to target children and young people.
In the midst of a lawsuit, the biggest tobacco producers were forced to publish 35 million pages of once secret content which Dr Doorley said revealed that companies had past and present been advertising across various media targeted at children and youth. “So we know from that the tobacco industry was targeting children, advising other companies to do this because if you do not have new child recruits to get addicted, a new generation, your business is gone,” said Dr Doorley.
No surprise
Dr Doorley added that the difference between plain packaging and traditional packaging is so powerful because of branding. It’s no surprise that children and young people are drawn to anything that is in style or gives off the idea of style. Tobacco companies know this, which is why traditional packaging uses brighter colours, more interesting designs and other elements which are shown to be more appealing to a younger audience.
“Our smoking rates among adults and children have come down dramatically, and that’s not just because of plain packaging, but when you talk about smoking, you’re always talking about multiple interventions it’s never just one,” said Dr Doorley.
Ireland is not the first to try to enforce plain packaging on their tobacco products though. Australia began plain packaging in 2012 and a study four years later in 2016 found that it is having a positive impact. According to Dr Doorley, the idea behind plain packaging isn’t just to make tobacco less attractive to children, but also to current smokers to bring down the number of addicted smokers.
According to Dr Doorley there are many factors that can make a person more likely to become a smoker, but one of the biggest ones is having a parent who smokes. “First of all, children of smoking parents are more likely to smoke, that’s not the only factor, the tobacco industry does target children and vulnerable teenagers, but in general if your parents smoke, the child is more likely to smoke,” said Dr Doorley. “The more visible that smoking is to children, the more they see it as normal behaviour.”
It may seem like branding wouldn’t have much impact on what young people pay attention to, especially if the product is the same on the inside, however a study in the U.K. following participants’ eyes found that weekly smokers and children experimenting with smoking had increased visual attention to the health facts rather than the branding. This is why one of ASH’s current goals to promote smoke-free outdoor areas, like sports stadiums and university stadiums.
The protection of children and young people from tobacco didn’t just start recently but began with the banning of having tobacco products displayed at retailers. Even now, 40-50% of young people can name a tobacco product, but that is still lower than it used to be, which the members of ASH see as a victory.
However, there is still more that can be done. Dr Doorley said that although many children experience a health class, it does not have as much of an impact as one might think. “First of all, I don’t think that lecturing kids works. For example, if you push too hard on an issue like this, they tend to push back,” said Dr Doorley. “So the thing to do is first, give the good example because it speaks volumes, it has the biggest impact.”
Along with seeing tobacco products, seeing people smoke on a regular basis also increases the chances that a young person will pick up a smoking habit. Dr Doorley also said that another factor that may affect a child’s chance of becoming a smoker is socio-economic status. Children who are born to lower-middle class families are more likely to become smokers than children born to higher class families.
Perhaps one of the hardest positions to be in is that of a parent of a young person who has begun a smoking habit.
Although the most natural reaction might be to over pressure the young person to quit, Dr Doorley said that sometimes a gentle asking of questions might be more effective than a forceful push.
“Make it clear that you are there to talk about anything and everything and make a point of doing it everyday and maybe if you have the chance ask them ‘how do you feel about your smoking? Is it something you like or enjoy?’ – something in that sort of way, but the point is not to be too hard on them because then that whole behaviour becomes secret and you’re not going to know,” said Dr Doorley.
Another heartbreaking situation that Dr Doorley sees is when young children suffer from second hand smoking. Children can experience damage without smoking starting at conception and babies of smoking mothers can be born weighing 200 grams less than babies of non-smokers, which can be a sign of slightly diminished health.
Parents who decide to smoke after the child is born are encouraged to not smoke around the house both to spare the young people from second hand smoke damage as well as lowering the chance of that young person also becoming a smoker.
ASH Ireland plans to continue their fight against tobacco in the hope of one day, helping create a tobacco-free Ireland.