The latest part of the TPP to be leaked is its investment chapter. And like almost everything we know about the secretive negotiations for the agreement, it provides plenty of cause for concern.
The tobacco industry warned smokers would use special covers to conceal the large-scale graphic warnings on packs. This hasn’t happened.
Lucas Cock/AAP
There is near-universal agreement that Australia’s implementation of tobacco plain packaging in December 2012 has seen the most virulent opposition ever experienced from the global tobacco industry.
The government’s decision to allow MPs to vote on standardised packaging before the general election will finally bring to an end the tobacco industry’s three-year campaign to prevent regulation of cigarette…
We are still waiting to hear whether the UK government will rule in that all tobacco products should be placed in standardised packaging. Jane Ellison, the under secretary of state for public health, has…
Two-thirds of smokers bought their cigarettes at supermarkets before and after plain packs were introduced.
Lukas Koch/AAP
Plain packaging has not driven smokers to buy cheap imports or illicit tobacco, or to favour discount retailers over corner stores, a study published today in the journal BMJ Open has found. This puts…
Just 12.8% of Australians over the age of 14 are now smoking on a daily basis.
Flickr: noahvoelker
Evidence is mounting that plain cigarette packaging is helping prevent young people from becoming addicted, life-long customers of big tobacco. From January 2012, all tobacco products have been sold in…
Public health ministers have said they will push ahead with standardised packaging for cigarettes in England after the publication of a much-anticipated independent review. Paediatrician Cyril Chandler…
Boarded up: how companies are trumping our health.
Eschipul
If I asked you to name some of the current threats to your health, “international trade law” probably wouldn’t be on the tip of your tongue. Yet trade agreements, and the way we negotiate them, can affect…
In 1952 the first paper was published linking smoking with death. About 50 years later governments around the world started to ban smoking advertising from TV, billboards and sporting venues. Then, eventually…
Tobacco use causes more than five million deaths every year across the world.
MilitaryHealth/Flickr
Reema Rattan, The Conversation and Isabelle Knight, The Conversation
Editors of journals published by the BMJ Group will no longer consider publishing research that is partly or wholly funded by the tobacco industry, the journals have said in an editorial published this…
Tobacco kills at least half of users - lobbyists are smaller fry.
Brittany Perry
I recently interviewed Nicola Roxon, the former minister responsible for cleaning up Australia’s public health policy through legislation on standardised tobacco packaging. It shed some light on how public…
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation and Alexia Attwood, The Conversation
Plain packaging on tobacco products is associated with lower smoking appeal, greater support for the policy and a higher urgency to quit among adult smokers, a new study has found. The study, conducted…
The tobacco industry has stated publicly that it’s helping countries bring claims against Australia’s tobacco plain packaging law.
LUKAS COCH/AAP
Earlier this month, Cuba became the fourth country to challenge Australia’s plain tobacco packaging law by requesting consultations with Australia through the World Trade Organization (WTO). Tobacco companies…
Big Tobacco’s planners eye their world maps and salivate over large, poorly educated populations.
Image from shutterstock.com
Plain packing has been a reality for Big Tobacco in Australia for three months now; New Zealand announced last week it will follow suit; and at least four other nations, including India, are also considering…
Obesity, over-diagnosis, the NDIS, vaccinations and open access for genetic information were just some of the issues covered in 2012.
Kylie May; shutterstock.com; Morberg; Pranjal Mahn
It promised to be a full year of reforms: pokies legislation, front-of-pack food labels and a dental system that doesn’t cost those in need an arm and a leg. But while we did see cigarette companies forced…
The High Court decision is not a quirk of Antipodean constitutional law, as alleged by British American Tobacco.
AAP
The High Court of Australia’s ruling on the plain packaging of tobacco products is one of the great constitutional cases of our age. The ruling will resonate throughout the world - as other countries will…
Sweden is ahead of many nations in anti-smoking efforts but it’s not at the head of the class.
Jess Pac
In general, Swedes tend to have a good self-image. Not necessarily of ourselves as individuals but of Sweden and Swedes as a whole. The general view is that we are more democratic, liberal, rational, equal…