Plain packaging on cigarette packs in Canada superior efforts for decreasing smoking

Eradicating branding from cigarette packs in Canada considerably lowered the attraction of cigarettes, in accordance with a brand new research from the Worldwide Tobacco Management (ITC) Challenge, on the College of Waterloo.

This coverage—referred to as plain packaging—goals to remove the tobacco business‘s use of engaging pack designs to make cigarettes interesting, particularly to youth. Plain packaging requires all tobacco packages to have a standardized look, with no branding, together with logos. All packages should use the identical drab brown color, with no engaging options and all textual content printed in a standardized font and placement. Plain packaging was required on cigarettes and different tobacco merchandise offered in Canada on February 7, 2020. Canada was the tenth nation to require plain packaging since Australia in 2012. However Canada’s plain packaging legislation was the primary nation to additionally standardize cigarettes size and width.

“Branding on cigarette packaging is understood to detract people who smoke’ consideration away from well being warnings through the use of constructive and interesting imagery to compete with dramatic pictorial messages on well being warnings,” stated Geoffrey Fong, professor of psychology at Waterloo, and Principal Investigator of the ITC Challenge. “Previous analysis research of plain packaging in different international locations, together with these carried out by the ITC Challenge, discovered that plain packaging elevated the effectiveness of recent or revised well being warnings.”

However in Canada, plain packaging was not accompanied by new warnings. As a substitute, plain packaging was launched on packages the place the identical warnings have been in place since 2012. Research present that except warnings are steadily revised and elevated in measurement, they are going to turn into much less efficient over time attributable to wear-out: the identical messages repeated will not have the identical impression. The ITC analysis research examined 4600 Canadian people who smoke at two deadlines—in 2018 (earlier than plain packaging) and in 2020 (after plain packaging). After plain packaging, extra Canadian people who smoke reported that they didn’t just like the look of their cigarette pack, rising from 28.6 % in 2018 to 44.7 % in 2020. Within the two management international locations—Australia and the USA—which didn’t change their packaging laws throughout that interval, there was no change in people who smoke’ reported pack attraction. Lowering attraction is a vital technique for decreasing tobacco use, particularly amongst younger individuals, since attraction is linked to smoking initiation and development to common smoking amongst youth. The ITC analysis research in Canada discovered that as a result of plain packaging was not accompanied by new, revised warnings, plain packaging in Canada didn’t result in elevated warning effectiveness, in distinction to plain packaging in different ITC international locations—Australia, New Zealand, and England—the place it did result in elevated effectiveness of recent, revised warnings. “These essential findings reaffirm the significance of plain packaging to scale back the attraction of probably the most harmful client product on this planet—one which kills no less than one-half of its common customers,” stated Fong. “Canada’s plain packaging success strengthens the proof of the facility and significance of this regulation to fight smoking. On the similar time, our findings level to the necessity for extra frequent enhancement and revision of well being warnings to maximise their impression.”

The research, Evaluating the impression of plain packaging amongst Canadian people who smoke: Findings from the 2018 and 2020 ITC Smoking and Vaping Surveys, was launched on-line as we speak within the journal Tobacco Management.