Thai Health Min to appeal for larger warning graphics on cigarette packs

[webfact]

HEALTH
Health Ministry to appeal for larger warning graphics on cigarette packs
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The Public Health Ministry is to file an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court to allow it to make the warning graphics on cigarette packs larger.

The move comes after last month's suspension by the Administrative Court of the plan, under which tobacco companies would have been forced to increase the size of the warning graphic from 55 per cent of the pack surface to 85 per cent.

Dr Nopporn Cheanklin, deputy director of the Disease Control Department, said the ministry will file an appeal to the Supreme Court on two main points. First, the ministry will ask the court to force cigarette makers to use the set of 10 warning graphics on cigarette packs, as designated by the ministerial announcement that takes effect on October 2. He acknowledged that the makers will have to lay out money for the printing of the new set of warning graphics on cigarette packs.

Second, the ministry will ask the court to force the cigarette makers enlarge the warning graphics on packs to cover up to 85 per cent of the surface

The ministry is expected to file an appeal with the court by tomorrow. It is currently waiting for academic papers that will demonstrate to the judges how enlarging the warning graphic on the will reduce the number of new smokers.

Meanwhile, Pradith said at least 9 cigarette makers had already complied with the ministerial announcement and changed the warning graphics on their cigarette packets. Two of them had already shipped their products to Thailand.


-- The Nation 2013-09-17

[jaltsc]

First of all. It doesn't appear that the warnings are working. There are more Thais and foreigners smoking than I have ever seen before.

Secondly. Smokers continue to smoke and pollute the air in restaurants and other public venues, causing second hand smoke, which in turn causes smoke related illnesses in those who do not smoke. If they want to kill themselves, fine. Don't contribute to making others sick with their disgusting, imbecilic addiction. With all the medical findings and health warnings, one has to be a real schmuck to even light up a cigarette for the first time.

If the Public Health Ministry wanted to be affective, they would create a viable force to enforce the non smoking regulations. Walk into any restaurant and cafe and you can see someone lighting up a cigarette under the "No Smoking-2000 THB Fine" sign...And does the proprietor ask the person to put out the cigarette. Of course not, s/he gives him an ash tray.

Just another toothless move by the government to appear that they aren't running on a third world mentality...Again.

[gerry123]

Maybe for economic purposes one general purpose sticker could be produced for a health warning for smokes / trains and certain airports

[marell]

These warning grapics are already pretty big (and graphic) and there doesn't seem to be any real evidence that they accomplish much of anything.

Agree with jaltsc that any effective anti-smoking effort requires much more serious enforcement. Additionally, the Health Ministry, even if well-intended, simply doesn't have the power to make that happen. Small businesses routinely ignore the law and larger businesses like bars, clubs etc are required to add 'smoking' fees to the their list of unofficial operating payments.

All things considered, the current proposals seem to be functionally ineffective and designed primarily for public consumption.

Edited September 17, 2013 by marell

[prk888]

the major players within the industry (even here in Thailand) seem to agree that a smoker has made up his mind to buy even before he/she goes into a shop to purchase. sales didn't drop off here in Thailand after the first graphics appeared, but the sale of 'imported' cigarettes did. Go figure !

[prk888]

correct to my #7 post above. The sale of the 'grey' 'imported' 'branded' ciggies actually grew

[lee b]

Blah blah blah, the way they are going, nobody will not which brand is which.

[nisakiman]

The gross medico-porn has been forced onto cigarette packets in various countries for years now, and there is no evidence that it has had any effect whatsoever either in reducing smoking rates or in reducing take-up rates. Are the Tobacco Control Industry unaware of this fact?

Of course they are not unaware. Dishonesty has been their modus operandi for the past several decades. Their campaign against smoking has not, and never has had anything to do with health, but is based in an ideological hatred of smokers and smoking, and they work with the ethos "the end justifies the means". That is why, despite all the evidence to the contrary, they still plug the 'Second-Hand Smoke is Harmful" myth. And they have been very successful, too. They have managed to get smoking banned just about everywhere by manipulating figures and omitting inconvenient facts and then issuing press releases to a gullible and unquestioning media, who then print verbatim the misinformation they've been fed. And they will adopt the same tactics with graphic images and plain packaging. Expect a blitz of press releases from them lauding the huge success (regardless of the lack of evidence) of plain packaging in Australia in the near future.

But the whole argument over plain packaging / gross images is merely inconsequential posturing on the part of its proponents. They all know (at least, the movers and shakers in Tobacco Control know, perhaps not the indoctrinated drones) that it's all just a part of the process of denormalising smoking and smokers. The vast majority of anti-smoking propaganda is based on a tissue of half-lies and cherry-picked and manipulated statistics; misleading soundbites and appeals to baser emotions. "Think of the children" is the rallying cry.

The Tobacco Control Industry conveniently fails to mention that in the 1998 WHO study by Boffetta et al into the effects of passive smoking , they found absolutely no statistically significant effect on those exposed to SHS, apart from in one area, and that was that children who were brought up in a home where one or both parents smoked were actually 22% LESS LIKELY to develop lung cancer in later life. Yes, that's right, 22% LESS likely. And just to spell that out, it means that being exposed to SHS has a PROTECTIVE effect for children. So much for the 'dangers' of SHS. And so much for "Think of the children".

(Boffetta P et al. "Multicenter case-control studyof exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in Europe," 'Journal of the National Cancer Institute ', October 7, 1998, Vol. 90. Issue 19, pp, 1440-1450.)

Of course, you won't find any trace of that on the ASH website, and obviously the WHO tried to bury the report, because it didn't fit the agenda, but the Sunday Telegraph unearthed it, and published on March 8 1998. Cue much consternation from the Tobacco Control lobby! The damage limitation machine was swung into action, and the report was re-interred.

As everybody who takes an interest in these matters knows. It's not about the children, and it's not about health. It's about the uglification of anything and everything to do with smoking, because Tobacco Control hate it. Simple as that.

And no, I don't work for Big Tobacco.

[hellodolly]

Well It would be a good idea to try to curtail the smoking of Tobacco. But I don't believe bigger warning signs on the package will do it.

The Health minister said

"The ministry is expected to file an appeal with the court by tomorrow. It is currently waiting for academic papers that will demonstrate to the judges how enlarging the warning graphic on the will reduce the number of new smokers."

Now why waste that money on impractical things if they really believe the warnings on the packages are going to curtail smoking put the money into education and teach them how to read.

edit

What kind of a judge is going to listen to an academic?

Edited September 17, 2013 by hellodolly

[spirit47]

Burning ricefields, truck exhaust and burning plastic trash is more dangerous than a good clean tobacco, not this chemical filled garbage from cigarrette companies...Let me enjoy my 10 Bath Thai tobacco...

[Thai at Heart]

Well It would be a good idea to try to curtail the smoking of Tobacco. But I don't believe bigger warning signs on the package will do it.

The Health minister said

"The ministry is expected to file an appeal with the court by tomorrow. It is currently waiting for academic papers that will demonstrate to the judges how enlarging the warning graphic on the will reduce the number of new smokers."

Now why waste that money on impractical things if they really believe the warnings on the packages are going to curtail smoking put the money into education and teach them how to read.

edit

What kind of a judge is going to listen to an academic?

they can tax them to a price beyond the vast majority's means to buy. But then the government would be putting itself out of business. Ever heard of a Thai business do that?

[Thai at Heart]

The gross medico-porn has been forced onto cigarette packets in various countries for years now, and there is no evidence that it has had any effect whatsoever either in reducing smoking rates or in reducing take-up rates. Are the Tobacco Control Industry unaware of this fact?

Of course they are not unaware. Dishonesty has been their modus operandi for the past several decades. Their campaign against smoking has not, and never has had anything to do with health, but is based in an ideological hatred of smokers and smoking, and they work with the ethos "the end justifies the means". That is why, despite all the evidence to the contrary, they still plug the 'Second-Hand Smoke is Harmful" myth. And they have been very successful, too. They have managed to get smoking banned just about everywhere by manipulating figures and omitting inconvenient facts and then issuing press releases to a gullible and unquestioning media, who then print verbatim the misinformation they've been fed. And they will adopt the same tactics with graphic images and plain packaging. Expect a blitz of press releases from them lauding the huge success (regardless of the lack of evidence) of plain packaging in Australia in the near future.

But the whole argument over plain packaging / gross images is merely inconsequential posturing on the part of its proponents. They all know (at least, the movers and shakers in Tobacco Control know, perhaps not the indoctrinated drones) that it's all just a part of the process of denormalising smoking and smokers. The vast majority of anti-smoking propaganda is based on a tissue of half-lies and cherry-picked and manipulated statistics; misleading soundbites and appeals to baser emotions. "Think of the children" is the rallying cry.

The Tobacco Control Industry conveniently fails to mention that in the 1998 WHO study by Boffetta et al into the effects of passive smoking , they found absolutely no statistically significant effect on those exposed to SHS, apart from in one area, and that was that children who were brought up in a home where one or both parents smoked were actually 22% LESS LIKELY to develop lung cancer in later life. Yes, that's right, 22% LESS likely. And just to spell that out, it means that being exposed to SHS has a PROTECTIVE effect for children. So much for the 'dangers' of SHS. And so much for "Think of the children".

(Boffetta P et al. "Multicenter case-control studyof exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in Europe," 'Journal of the National Cancer Institute ', October 7, 1998, Vol. 90. Issue 19, pp, 1440-1450.)

Of course, you won't find any trace of that on the ASH website, and obviously the WHO tried to bury the report, because it didn't fit the agenda, but the Sunday Telegraph unearthed it, and published on March 8 1998. Cue much consternation from the Tobacco Control lobby! The damage limitation machine was swung into action, and the report was re-interred.

As everybody who takes an interest in these matters knows. It's not about the children, and it's not about health. It's about the uglification of anything and everything to do with smoking, because Tobacco Control hate it. Simple as that.

And no, I don't work for Big Tobacco.

Indeed, the causality to second hand smoke is so tenous, I can't believe it wasn't put up as a cover for car emmissions or the oil industry.

[spirit47]

Why on whisky bottles no pictures of accidents and and drunken people?

[surangw]

tobacco companies have not been keeping up their contributions ?

[Bottlerocket]

You could put a cigarette pack into a box 10 times larger, cover it in medical shock porn, put a tiny, bland white sticker stating the brand in black Times New Roman, and people would still buy them. It's clearly not the way to stop smokers. If they're so darned dangerous and nasty, put your money where your mouth is and ban them completely or <deleted>. I see a new sin tax adjustment on the horizon.

[JoeThePoster]

Thai Health Min to appeal for larger warning graphics on cigarette packs

Couldn't they just send a memo instead to their colleagues at the Thai Finance Ministry who own the Thai Tobacco Monopoly?

[Neilly]

[nongmai07]

Got to say i am sick and tired of it, Just ban smoking in public places likes most countries have done now. i only drink in non smoking bars now, otherwise i normally end up with 2 days in bed with a sore throat due to 2nd hand smoking..it just isnt right or fair on non smokers...

[Cnxforever]

Another idiotic idea from some bored politicians - how much does the Thai Tobacco Monopoly make a year for exposing people to an addictive drug?? How many billions you think?

No smoker gives a dam_n about any disgusting picture on a cigarette pack! If it is so addictive and unhealthy why is the government selling it to people?

Why is the Thai government and many other governments selling drugs - and nicotine is a drug - that is more addictive than herion?

One part of the government is selling it to you - while the other part is complaining about it and tells you it is unhealthy!

Edited September 17, 2013 by Cnxforever

[jaltsc]

Or...Show this ad: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/17/quit-smoking-woman/2825241/

ATLANTA — A North Carolina woman featured prominently in a graphic government ad campaign to get people to stop smoking died Monday of cancer.

Terrie Hall died at a hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C., federal officials said. She was 53.

"She was a public health hero," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the campaign. "She may well have saved more lives than most doctors do."

A former smoker whose voice box was removed years ago, Hall took a leading role in the campaign that showed how smoking-related cancer ravages the body. Officials believe the "Tips from Former Smokers" campaign led as many as 100,000 Americans smokers to quit.

Hall's first ad showed her putting on a wig, putting in false teeth and covering a hole in her throat with a scarf. It was the campaign's most popular spot by far, receiving more than 2.8 million views on YouTube.

It was the federal public health agency's largest and starkest anti-smoking push, and its first national advertising effort.

In another ad, the Lexington resident addressed the camera in the buzzing sound of her artificial voice box. She advised smokers to make a video of themselves reading a children's book or singing a lullaby. "I wish I had. The only voice my grandson's ever heard is this one," her electric voice growled.

Hall's oral and throat cancer was caused by the cigarette smoking she began in high school, CDC officials said. This summer, the cancer spread to her brain.

[nisakiman]

Indeed, the causality to second hand smoke is so tenous, I can't believe it wasn't put up as a cover for car emmissions or the oil industry.

There is indeed a school of thought in the medical profession that thinks exactly that; that cigarettes and smoking provided a very convenient (and very conveniently self-inflicted) red herring to divert attention away from the petro-chemical industry. Because the fact remains that although it is the common consensus that smoking causes lung cancer, they have never been able to replicate the process under laboratory conditions. Hundreds of thousands of lab rats and other animals have been exposed to years of forced smoking at rates of up to 500 cigarettes (equivalent) a day, and yet no lab test subject has ever shown any indication of lung cancer. All we have is correlation, and correlation is not causation. For instance, I could say that it has been observed that all over the world, very shortly after cocks start crowing, the sun rises. There is a very strong, indeed undeniable correlation there. However, before I can assert causality (that is that the crowing of the cocks is the reason for the sun rising), I need to provide empirical evidence. And in the link between smoking and lung cancer, empirical evidence is sadly lacking, despite the mega-millions thrown at it.

The whole orthodoxy is based on the research from the 1950s by Richard Doll and Bradford Hill, and yet that research was criticised at the time by Sir Ronald Fisher, arguably the greatest statistician of the 20^th century, as being essentially flawed. Not only that, but it threw up a number of anomalies, such as the fact that Doll's research found that smokers who inhaled were less likely to get lung cancer than those who didn't inhale. (As an interesting aside, Sir Richard Doll, in his capacity as a world expert on cancer, testified to the Australian government some years back that the many health issues suffered by vets returning from Vietnam were categorically NOT caused by exposure to Agent Orange, a defoliant made by Monsanto and used extensively in the war. After his death, it was discovered that at the time of his testimony, Doll was receiving $1500 per day consultancy fees from - Monsanto!)

http://members.iinet.com.au/~ray/TSSOASb.html

And of course we have other anomalies around us, such as the fact that Greece, which has the highest prevalence of smoking in Europe, also has the lowest prevalence of lung cancer and heart disease. Likewise Japan. (Facts that are brushed under the carpet by Tobacco Control, because they don't fit the agenda.)

And some researchers have noted that lung cancer cases have a tendency to cluster in urban areas and along corridors flanking arterial roads, which cannot be explained by smoking.

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/diesel_lung_cancer.html

These are just a couple of the many realities which lend the lie to the propaganda we are constantly fed about smoking.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

– H. L. Mencken