Plan B Forum

Australian court OKs logo ban on cigarette packs

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia has urged other countries to adopt the world's toughest law on cigarette promotion, which was upheld Wednesday by the country's highest court and prohibits tobacco companies from displaying their logos on cigarette packs.

The High Court rejected a challenge by tobacco companies who argued the value of their trademarks will be destroyed if they are no longer able to display their distinctive colors, brand designs and logos on cigarette packs.

Starting in December, packs will instead come in a uniformly drab shade of olive and feature graphic health warnings and images of cancer-riddled mouths, blinded eyeballs and sickly children. The government hopes the new packs will make smoking as unglamorous as possible.

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Makes no sense to me.

Nothing "odd" about it - the Australian government passed a law about what cigarette packaging could look like, cigarette manufacturers challenged the law in court, the law was upheld.

If one accepts that government has the right to limit advertising of certain products (tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals) then there's no reason those limits can't also be made to apply to the packaging.

It's odd that a cigarette company cannot be allowed put its own logo on their packaging. The idea of making the packaging unappealing with pictures of sick people is silly, in my opinion.

I wonder if the Australian government would allow the cigarette companies (or anyone else) to market cigarette cases with no restrictions as to what logo or advertisement is put on them. I bet there will be a great market for them in Australia. If I were a smoker I would just buy the cigarettes and throw away the package.

I agree with, Joe on this.

I was thinking the same thing as Joe...

In fact this could be "the step too far" that causes the whole anti youth-smoking campaign to backfire because of a booming industry in personalized "cool" low cost cigarette cases and package wrappers....

There'll be everything from goth and cartoon themes to cases made to look like candy boxes or make up compacts....

The one law that can never be repealed is the one regarding unintended consequences....

The thing I find disturbing is that this is the government taking property from its nationals (trademarks are property rights which have considerable value) without any compensation to the owner. Yes, it can be argued it is in the public interest, but I seriously doubt a smoker will be deterred by a drab package (at best, all it will do is affect the brand owners by confusing consumers as to what brand they are buying). Cigarettes are products that can be legally bought and sold; if you want to ban the sale of them, ban it after debating the issue; this makes no sense.

Joe Guy wrote:It's odd that a cigarette company cannot be allowed put its own logo on their packaging. The idea of making the packaging unappealing with pictures of sick people is silly, in my opinion.
... "

Cigarette companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars making the opposite claim every year.

I would vote with the 'smart money' if I were you, bubba.


yrs,
rubato

Indeed, if restrictions like these are not going to have any impact on consumption, then why do tobacco companies expend so much time, energy, money and rhetoric fighting against them? Just for the principle of the thing?

Just for the principle of the thing?

No, because effective "branding" increases market share among those who smoke...

Which is not the same thing as "getting" people to smoke.

Big RR wrote:The thing I find disturbing is that this is the government taking property from its nationals (trademarks are property rights which have considerable value) without any compensation to the owner.

Trademarks are only of value when regulated and recognised by government.

Not everyone's market share can go up. Assuming there is no attempt being made to affect overal consumption, there will be winners and losers from any branding strategy. And yet not even the losers are willing to get behind these restrictions, even though it will supposedly be in their economic interest. Are they just plain stupid, or do they recognize that there will be an impact on consumption?

Scooter wrote:Indeed, if restrictions like these are not going to have any impact on consumption, then why do tobacco companies expend so much time, energy, money and rhetoric fighting against them? Just for the principle of the thing?

It seems obvious to me that any company that markets and sells a product and the government mandates the necessity to make their product as unappealing as possible would put a lot of money and effort into fighting the government's ridiculous rules.

The Australian government (and the U.S.) need to either declare cigarettes illegal or allow the cigarette companies the same rights as any other product.

The truth is, at least in the U.S. - and especially in California - the same government that makes those ridiculous laws to discourage the buying of cigarettes depend on cigarette taxes to fund cancer research and other health care programs.

In short, it's a convoluted and really stupid plan put forth by our government.

Joe Guy wrote:It seems obvious to me that any company that markets and sells a product and the government mandates the necessity to make their product as unappealing as possible would put a lot of money and effort into fighting the government's ridiculous rules.

But if, as is claimed, the rules don't have any impact on tobacco consumption, then what is the point in expending that money and effort? Jim claims it's about protecting relative market share, but that would mean it would be to the advantage of some tobacco companies to get behind the rules, rather than fight them. Except they don't.

The Australian government (and the U.S.) need to either declare cigarettes illegal or allow the cigarette companies the same rights as any other product.

Not every product can be advertised however the manufacturer chooses. There are restrictions on the way alcohol and prescription drugs can be advertised, for example. Why should tobacco be accorded some halo of freedom that other addictive, mind altering substances do not have?

The truth is, at least in the U.S. - and especially in California - the same government that makes those ridiculous laws to discourage the buying of cigarettes depend on cigarette taxes to fund cancer research and other health care programs.

Yep, so what's your point? The government realizes that tobacco prohibition would be a failure, and so has chosen instead to allow it to remain legal and tax the hell out of it to pay for the damage it causes. An approach that many people say should be taken with other drugs that are currently illegal.

Scooter wrote:But if, as is claimed, the rules don't have any impact on tobacco consumption, then what is the point in expending that money and effort?

It's very likely that if the tobacco companies didn't fight it, the government's effort might cause a drop in sales. The truth is very likely that the government doesn't really want cigarettes to disappear but they want us to believe that they do. Why would the government purposely want to lose the revenue cigarette sales generate?

Scooter wrote:Not every product can be advertised however the manufacturer chooses. There are restrictions on the way alcohol and prescription drugs can be advertised, for example. Why should tobacco be accorded some halo of freedom that other addictive, mind altering substances do not have?

"Halo of freedom"? There is no other product on the market that I'm aware of that requires the manufacturer to include pictures of sick people on the packaging while not being allowed to include their own company logo.

Can you name one?

Scooter wrote:Yep, so what's your point? The government realizes that tobacco prohibition would be a failure, and so has chosen instead to allow it to remain legal and tax the hell out of it to pay for the damage it causes. An approach that many people say should be taken with other drugs that are currently illegal.

My point is that the government is obviously benefiting from tobacco sales and masking its appreciation of the large amount revenue it receives as a concern about our health.

If the government was really concerned about the health of cigarette smokers, cigarette sales would be made illegal. The truth is, 'Big Tobacco' is good for our economy.

Joe Guy wrote:The truth is very likely that the government doesn't really want cigarettes to disappear but they want us to believe that they do. Why would the government purposely want to lose the revenue cigarette sales generate?

Because tobacco use adds exorbitant amounts to health care costs that government has to pay for. Presumably fewer people smoking=lower cost of dealing with the adverse health effects of smoking.

There is no other product on the market that I'm aware of that requires the manufacturer to include pictures of sick people on the packaging while not being allowed to include their own company logo.

Can you name one?

Other products have different sorts of advertising restrictions that are deemed appropriate for those products. These are the sorts of advertising restrictions that have been deemed appropriate for cigarettes.

If the government was really concerned about the health of cigarette smokers, cigarette sales would be made illegal.

Or, alternatively, government has the wisdom to recognize that tobacco prohibition would be a faiure, and has chosen instead to pay for the costs of dealing with the adverse effects of tobacco use by taxing it heavily.

The truth is, 'Big Tobacco' is good for our economy.

Better that the economic benefits of tobacco accrue to legal economy than to the mafia and other drug lords who would take it over if it were criminalized. At least this way, we can mitigate some of the costs that tobacco smoking imposes on the economy.

It's very simple, actually.

If there was no net gain to our government from tobacco sales and smoking is as unhealthy as they say it is, the sale of tobacco wouldn't be allowed. It's not believable that taxes on tobacco sales are only only used to offset the cost of treating people who have been injured by cigarette smoking.

Whether we admit it or not, the government depends on cigarette company's sales.

The assumption you are making is that if government made tobacco illegal, it would prevent people from smoking. Other forms of prohibition (alcohol and drugs) have proven this to be fallacious. Therefore, since people will smoke anyway, and since that will cost money in health care, lost productivity, etc., it is better to keep the sales of tobacco legal, tax them, and use the money derived therefrom to offset those costs. And if the amount generated in tobacco taxes exceeds the costs borne by society due to tobacco use, then so what? Call it a tax on terminal stupidity.

And while I cannot isolate the impact of any individual attempt by government to curb smoking (such as this one), it is indisputable that the cumulative impact of social marketing campaigns, higher taxes, etc. has been to drastically reduce the percentage of the population that smokes when compared to only a few decades ago, a percentage that continues to decline with each passing year. If, as you say, government did not really want people to stop smoking, because it is greedy for their taxes, then it would have reversed course long ago, yes?

Scooter wrote:The assumption you are making is that if government made tobacco illegal, it would prevent people from smoking

I would not make such a stupid assumption.

I find it difficult to believe that anyone would believe that.

Unfortunately, I'm leaving now and can't elaborate.

I'll check in tomorrow.