The Plain Truth: Does Packaging Influence Smoking? - Softcover

Patrick Basham; John Luik

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0615613411 ISBN 13: 9780615613413

Publisher: Democracy Institute, 2012

Synopsis

The provocative book, The Plain Truth: Does Packaging Influence Smoking? dismantles the public health establishment's proposal to mandate the plain packaging of tobacco products. Authored by Patrick Basham and John Luik, the leading international experts on tobacco advertising and regulation, The Plain Truth provides an exhaustively researched and referenced, 345-page, peer-reviewed evaluation of every piece of research evidence used to support the plain packaging proposal. According to the authors, plain packaging is actually far removed from the world of evidence-based policymaking. The paucity of evidence would be laughable, write Basham and Luik, if the consequences were not so serious for taxpayers, private companies, and our body politic. International trade agreements, consumers' rights, intellectual property rights, and our basic liberties are all at risk. At the stroke of a pen, they explain, plain packaging will make the Australia, the UK, and the EU poorer and more illiberal societies, and jurisdictions further infantilised by their respective Nanny States and, critically, not a whit healthier. The Plain Truth explains that the UK Department of Health s new public consultation on tobacco plain packaging (i.e. packages containing only legislatively-dictated information and bereft of images, colour, and unique branding marks) is a well-intentioned step down a dangerous path towards deeply misguided public health policy. Plain packaging proponents claim it s a necessary and effective means of reducing smoking, especially youth smoking. Packaging, they claim, is merely an extension of advertising, and because advertising increases tobacco consumption, it s necessary to eliminate alluring package images. To test this claim, The Plain Truth s authors meticulously review the studies that purportedly prove a causal connection between advertising and youth consumption. These studies must prove that advertising is a significant factor in relation to all other possible causes of youth smoking. The Plain Truth reveals that the tobacco advertising studies cited by advocates do not show advertising to be a significant factor. There s a large and growing body of empirical evidence, find Basham and Luik, which reveals how unsuccessful full or partial advertising bans have been in reducing smoking, especially among youth. In addition, studies on alternative instigators of youth smoking peer pressure, parental environment, and economic and educational backgrounds further undermine claims that advertising causes tobacco consumption. The authors rigorous assessment of the most frequently cited pro-plain packaging studies exposes extensive methodological flaws that violate basic principles of the scientific research method and thereby reduce allegedly scientific claims to mere rhetorical dogma. Furthermore, plain packaging would illegally seize tobacco manufacturers registered trademarks, which are protected by both domestic laws and international treaties, such as the Paris Convention of 1883; the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ; and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Other non-tobacco commercial sectors whose trademarks constitute a major part of their business strategies, including packaged foods and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, should be deeply concerned over the precedent tobacco plain packaging would create. The authors find that these treaties do not permit the sweeping seizure of trademarks that plain packaging policies would initiate. Consequently, once tobacco companies successfully sue the Australian and British governments for damages, Australian and British taxpayers will be in the morally shocking position of financially bailing-out their domestic tobacco industry.

About this title

About the Author

A Channel Islander, Patrick Basham is founding director of the Democracy Institute, a politically independent think tank. Previously, he served as a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where he is currently an adjunct scholar. Prior to joining Cato, he led the Canadian Fraser Institute's tobacco regulation research. Basham's tobacco books include, Butt Out! How Philip Morris Burned Ted Kennedy, the FDA & the Anti-Tobacco Movement; Hidden in Plain Sight: Why Tobacco Display Bans Fail (coauthored with John Luik); and Erasing Intellectual Property: Plain Packaging of Consumer Products and the Implications for Trademark Rights (also coauthored with Luik). In 2007, he coauthored (with Gio Gori and John Luik) the UK bestseller, Diet Nation: Exposing the Obesity Crusade. Basham has taught tobacco regulation and health policy courses at Johns Hopkins University and has written a tobacco policy blog for the British Medical Journal. His public health articles have appeared in the Sunday Telegraph, the Guardian, The Independent, the New York Times, the Washington Times, The Australian, the Huffington Post, and National Review Online. He lectures on both sides of the Atlantic and appears regularly on American, British, and Canadian radio and television. John Luik is a senior fellow at the Democracy Institute. He has taught philosophy and management studies at a number of universities, has been Senior Associate of the Niagara Institute of the Conference Board of Canada with responsibility for its work in public policy and leadership and organizational change, and has worked as a consultant for governmental institutions, professional organizations, and corporations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Luik was educated on a Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford where he obtained his B.A., M.A., and D. Phil degrees. His academic interests include public policy, particularly the use of science in policy and the issue of government intervention to change risky behaviors, the ethics of advertising and business, and philosophy. His writings have appeared in TCS, the British Medical Journal, the Journal of Psychopharmacology, Economic Affairs, the Washington Times, the American Spectator, the Globe and Mail, Spiked, the Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Post, the Western Standard, and National Review Online. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and eight books.

Review

Basham and Luik provide an immensely thorough evidence-based assessment of the effect of plain packaging on smoking. Their careful and scholarly consideration of the universe of existing studies shows that the preponderance of this evidence does not neatly support the agenda of plain-packaging advocates, and that plain packaging may in fact do more social harm than good. --Dr Martin Zelder, economist, Northwestern University

The Plain Truth provides a comprehensive and clinical demolition of the arguments in favor of the introduction of so-called tobacco-products plain packaging . It is a substantial document comprising 345 pages, including 21 pages of 280 references. But, The Plain Truth is not a difficult read. And it is a vital read for anyone who wants to have the information needed to take part in a rational debate about what is a watershed issue for the tobacco industry. --George Gay, European Editor, Tobacco Reporter magazine

Edition details

• Publisher: Democracy Institute
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0615613411
• ISBN 13: 9780615613413
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 345