Australia: Stand Up Against Tobacco Industry''

Source from:  SAPA 06/14/2013

The Australian government urged other countries to also stand up to the tobacco industry, saying it was confident of victory in a new legal battle over its landmark plain packaging rules.

"Big tobacco will stop at nothing to intimidate countries to not take appropriate public health measures," Australia's health minister, Jane Halton, said at a recent meeting marking World No Tobacco Day.

----Australia's new legislation, in force since December, aims to cut smoking rates by requiring tobacco products to be sold in drab green boxes with the same typeface and graphic health warnings.

Halton addressed a session of the World Health Organisation (WHO), as the UN agency seeks tougher global measures to reign in tobacco use, which claims six million lives a year.

"Tobacco continues to cause enormous suffering and death which is totally avoidable," she told participants.

"We urge other nations to defy the tobacco industry."

New Zealand and Ireland are planning plain packaging rules, despite a tobacco industry-backed challenge to Australia's law at the World Trade Organisation by cigar-producers Cuba, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, plus Ukraine.

The plaintiff countries maintain that Australia's law breaches international trade rules and intellectual property rights to brands – arguments that failed to convince Australia's High Court in a case brought by tobacco firms.

The WHO is concerned that the industry is replenishing its customer pool via new ways of marketing, chiefly aimed at young consumers.

"The tobacco industry needs to attract new victims to replace those who die or manage to quit, just to maintain profits," said Hans Troedsson, the WHO's executive director. Enditem