New Anti-Smoking Legislation Proposed in Queensland

In Queensland, Australia, there were proposed new anti-smoking laws which will make it more difficult for smokers to light up. Cameron Dick,  Health Minister, told that there was proposed to prohibit smoking on city’s bas stations, children’s sporting events, in and around childcare centres and other public zones. The city already banned smoking in restaurants,

Australian National University in Canberra to go 'smoke-free' from July

The Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra has used World No Tobacco Day to announce the campus will go smoke-free from the middle of July. The university announced that the smoking ban would cover the entire ANU campus in Canberra as well as remote ANU campuses such as the Mt Stromlo Observatory and Kioloa coastal campus near Batemans Bay. Students from this university prefer slim cigarettes like Vogue http://www.buycigarettes.eu/vogue

Vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young said ANU would go smoke-free from the start of the second semester on July 20.

"The university is announcing our decision to go smoke-free on World No Tobacco Day because we believe it sends a strong message to staff and students about being healthy," he said.

"The university is committed to providing a safe and healthy campus environment for staff, students, contractors and visitors. We feel this will help to address that."

Professor Young said the university would also provide support to staff and students who wished to quit smoking. He said ANU would pay for QUIT courses for staff and PhD students.

Smoking is already prohibited inside ANU buildings and within 10 metres of building entrances. The new policy prohibits all smoking, including electronic cigarettes, in or around any of the university's campuses. But smoking will be allowed in special designated smoking areas around licensed venues and residential colleges. ANU chief operating officer Chris Grange said the university had been thinking about going smoke-free for two years.

"Buildings on campus have been smoke-free for 20 years now and it's time for us to update our treatment of cigarettes," he said.

"Tobacco is just not something that we should have consumed on university campuses.

"I don't necessarily expect 100 per cent support from every staff member and student, but certainly there's an enormous groundswell of support for this measure."

Smoking Banned in Martin Place

SMOKERS are banned from lighting up in Martin Place for 12 months from today.

City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore announced the new measure this morning, saying rangers would patrol the central pedestrian mall for 12 months.

“This trial ban will protect visitors including many children and families by reducing their exposure to harmful second-hand tobacco smoke,” Ms Moore said.

The City surveyed businesses and 757 smokers and non-smokers to gauge community opinion.

The majority of non-smokers said Martin Place was less pleasant because of passive smoke.

“We have asked the community what they think about this issue and more people showed a preference for Martin Place to be a smoke-free zone,” Ms Moore said.

“Thousands of people pass through Martin Place every day, so it’s important we make the right decision for our workers, residents, visitors and businesses.”

The ban applies to all public outdoor space in Martin Place.

The trial has the backing of the Cancer Council, Council Institute and Heart Foundation.

“Creating smoke free public outdoor spaces will not only reduce the harmful spread of second hand smoke, but will also support people who have quit or are trying to quit,” the Heart Foundation’s Julie Anne Mitchell said.

Smoking is already prohibited in some areas of Martin Place under state legislation, including within four metres of a public building doorway.

The government will also enforce smoking bans in outdoor dining areas from July.

The Martin Place rule comes into effect just days after the Wentworth Courier reported Town Hall was clamping down on littering smokers, fining 379 of them in three months. Now smokers will have to look for other places to smoke their Parker&Simpson cigarettes online.

Vote expected in U.K. on plain packaging for cigarettes

The latest government attempt at plain cigarette packaging in the United Kingdom is sparking a fierce response from two British tobacco manufacturers. However, industry analysts and marketing officials said Friday they doubt there will be a spillover effect in the United States despite a similar push by anti-tobacco groups.

According to several UK media reports, Parliament members are expected to vote on plain packaging by March 30. The initiative is based primarily on regulations enacted in Australia in 2012 that have produced mixed results to date. If the British proposal is enacted, it would go into effect in May 2016. It would ban brightly colored packs and require packs to be uniform in size, shape and design and to carry large picture health warnings.

British health minister Jane Ellison said plain packaging was a "proportionate and justified response" because of the health risks associated with smoking, according to The Guardian newspaper.

British American Tobacco Pic, owner of 42 percent of Reynolds American Inc., said the plain packaging proposal "is a serious error of judgment given the clear evidence from Australia that plain packaging has not achieved any of its public health objectives and has increased illicit trade to its highest level in seven years."

The main plain-packing arguments expressed by Australia government leaders are that the packaging would help reduce overall smoking rates, reduce youth smoking rates and increase the effectiveness of health warnings. According to media reports, youth smoking rates have risen in Australia since 2012 and overall smoking rates have been flat.

A similar plain packaging proposal has been pushed among U.S. anti-tobacco advocates and Food and Drug Administration officials since 2009. However, advocates' biggest goal - requiring graphic warning labels on the top half of packs - has been stuck in neutral for nearly two years. Two separate federal courts are split on whether graphic warning labels violate tobacco companies' free-speech rights under the First Amendment.

U.S. tobacco companies increasingly rely on cigarette packaging to build brand loyalty and grab consumers - one of the few advertising avenues left to them after the government curbed their presence in magazines, billboards and TV They argue the proposed warnings went beyond factual information into anti-smoking advocacy.

Imperial Tobacco Group Ltd. has agreed to spend $7.1 billion to buy all of Lorillard Inc.'s operations outside its Newport brand in a three-way deal involving Reynolds, the maker of Camel Black cigarettes. Imperial offered similar comments to BAT on the plain packaging proposal, saying "it is regrettable that this issue has been caught up in knee-jerk electioneering at the expense of evidence-based policy making."

Graphic labels are seen as key to anti-smoking campaign

Those who buy cigarettes in Australia get to see packaging unlike anything that meets the gaze of American smokers. Some packs contain a large photo – front and back – of a bloodshot eye propped open, and the words, “Smoking causes blindness.” Others show a bloodied and ulcerated foot, with the warning, “Smoking causes peripheral vascular disease.” And still others show an abscessed mouth and warn. All include the phone number for a smoking quitline.

Through a legal challenge that hinged on their First Amendment rights, cigarette companies have been able to ward off a Food and Drug Administration effort to require such graphic images on cigarette packs in the U.S.; the FDA is looking to tamp them down but still require more prominent warnings than the ones that have run on one thin side of packs since 1985 – and are far easier to ignore.

The packaging difference matters, according to Maansi Bansal-Travers, a research scientist with the Department of Health Behavior at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

“A pack-a-day smoker sees their pack 7,000 times a year and they don’t want to constantly be reminded with a graphic image that might be disturbing that smoking causes all these diseases,” she said.

Canada has packaging similar to Australia, said Bansal-Travers, and research shows that more smokers have quit since the labeling changes were made. “In Canada,” she said, “one of my colleagues at the University at Waterloo has found in focus groups that women do not like to carry the warning about harm to a fetus because they find the image disturbing, and men do not like their girlfriends to carry the impotence warning because they find that disturbing.”

Bansal-Travers, who grew up in Williamsville, works in the Carlton Building on the Roswell campus. She focuses her research on tobacco advertising and promotion. Her husband, Mark Travers, works in the office next door. He specializes in tobacco-related air pollution research, particularly on the impact of secondhand smoke.

International cigarette advertising research has shown that “smokers have misperceptions about their products,” Bansal-Travers said, “and colors and labels on packs communicate misperceptions to smokers. Smokers consider that Davidoff has most stylich cigarette packs http://www.cigarettesplace.net/davidoff-cigarettes

How have you determined tobacco companies have been most effective in getting people to buy cigarettes? They’re using packaging to communicate, which is largely exposed at the point of sale. We have determined through our research that both smokers and nonsmokers do look at the cigarette pack display in the retail environment.

Push to stop selling cigarettes to Australians born after 2000

A generation of Australians could be on the brink of living a tobacco-free existence if a move to ban the sale of cigarettes to young people is successful. The 'tobacco-free' generation bill is set to be introduced into Tasmanian parliament this year, which would make it illegal for people born after the year 2000 to buy cigarettes and for retailers to sell tobacco-laced products to them.

The law would come into effect in 2018 and would mean people aged 14 this year would not be able to buy cigarettes online once they turn 18. Harsh penalties would also be imposed on anyone caught supplying tobacco to the 'tobacco-free generation' whether they're a retailer or an individual.

Tasmanian Independent Member of the Legislative Council Ivan Dean is the brains behind the idea and will put the motion to the Tasmanian parliament in the next two months. He said the move is not designed to penalise individuals but to better the health of young Australians.

'What we are saying is that anyone who turns 18 in 2018 will not be able to buy cigarettes and eventually when older smokers die out in 20, 30 years time the sale will end,' he said.

'The important thing is that this is not about criminalising the smokers - it's ensuring retailers and suppliers can't sell to anybody born after the year 2000.'

The idea has received backing from the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Medical Association, whose president Tim Greenaway said any effort to reduce levels of smoking in the community is well supported.

Mr Dean will bring the private members bill before parliament in November, at the latest, and then open up the conversation for debate next year. If successful, the legislation would be implemented by 2018 making it illegal for people aged 18 and under to buy tobacco in Tasmania. Although this particular law would only imply to that state, Mr Dean said he hopes other Australian states and territories would follow suit.

Retailers in Ireland Worried About Introduction of Plain Packs

In Ireland the representatives of Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association ( CSNA) told that Australia adopted too strict measures in order to improve their legislation on tobacco packaging. According to Vincent Jennings, who is CSNA chief executive, the introduction of plain cigarettes packaging in Ireland should be delayed. The initiative should be discussed first in

Warnings on Cigarette Packs in Australia

 Australia has been out in front in requiring graphic imagery on tobacco labels. European Union ministers agreed last month on new rules that would require a health warning that would combine pictures and text and cover 65 percent of the front and back of all cigarette packs, up from 40 percent. The rules require approval by the European Parliament.

In the United States, a 2009 law empowered the Food and Drug Administration to require large graphic and text warnings on the top half of the front and back of cigarette packs. But as federal courts have wrestled with the details of that law in challenges by the tobacco industry, the F.D.A. has not yet imposed a final set of labeling requirements.

Tobacco is taxed heavily in Australia, where smokers spend about 16 Australian dollars, or $14.70, for a pack of cigarettes. Partly as a result, smoking rates in Australia have declined. Last year, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 20.4 percent of adult men were smokers and 16.3 percent of adult women smoked.

In the United States, the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the smoking rate was 21.5 percent among adult men and 17.3 percent for adult women.

Smoking is also banned in nearly all enclosed public spaces in Australia, including restaurants, bars, sporting facilities and places of business.