The battle by the tobacco industry to snuff out new cigarette packaging restrictions has moved to Australia. Industry giant Philip Morris announced today that it is suing to block newly passed laws that would make Australia the first nation to remove logos, colors and other marketing material from cigarette packs.
Australia’s laws, as the United Kingdom newspaper The Telegraph reports, would restrict cigarette packs to having brand names printed in a small, uniform font on a background that is a dull, olive green – a color the government believes will turn off consumers. Cigarette packs mostly would be covered by graphic images intended to warn the public about the dangers of smoking.
Nicola Roxon, Australia’s health minister, called Australia’s new requirements, which would take effect in December, 2012, “an example for the world to follow.”
“Plain packaging means that the glamour is gone from smoking and cigarettes are now exposed for what they are: killer products that destroy thousands of Australian families,” she said.
Philip Morris countered that billions of dollars of valuable trademarks and investments are at stake. “We are left with no option,” the company said in a prepared statement. “The government has passed this legislation despite being unable to demonstrate that it will be effective at reducing smoking and has ignored the widespread concerns raised in Australia and internationally regarding the serious legal issues associated with plain packaging.”
Smoking rates have been declining in Australia for years, but the government says cigarettes still kill 15,000 people in the nation a year.
The move by Philip Morris comes two weeks after five fellow tobacco companies in the U.S. won a preliminary court injunction blocking the federal government’s plans to require tobacco companies to put graphic warning labels on cigarette packaging and advertising. The plans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were to take effect next September.
STUART SILVERSTEIN
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