On the 20th July, the Ministers and representatives of Ministries of Australia, France, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the Head of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Secretariat met in Paris to discuss ways to reduce tobacco use through effective tobacco control strategies and policies, especially standardised packaging of tobacco products, also known as plain packs.
This meeting is especially welcome since it comes from the direct initiative of countries, six of them European, to advance and adopt stricter rules on the marketing of tobacco products. Ministers acknowledged that significant scientific evidence exists to justify the introduction of standardised packaging, as it will result in the following public health benefits:
- reducing the appeal of tobacco products to consumers, especially women and young people;·
- increasing the effectiveness of health warnings on the packaging of tobacco products; and·
- reducing the ability of tobacco packaging to mislead consumers about the harmful effects of smoking.
The Ministers from the 10 cuntries stressed the need to keep tobacco control as a high level priority on international and national health agendas and the need to continue searching for innovative measures to reduce tobacco use, especially to stop future generations from using tobacco. Changing social attitudes and norms around the use of tobacco is vital.
They agreed to consider common initiatives in support of standardised packaging in view of the next World Health Assembly in 2016.