Public health is above all a political battle. The showdown initiated by the Minister of Health over the introduction of neutral packaging is an illustration of this. Tobacco kills 200 people every day and 73,000 every year! Staggering figures that are not enough to make everyone agree to take anti-smoking measures.
Even before the measure to introduce neutral cigarette packs was officially announced, tobacco companies and tobacconists made it known that they had every intention of counter-attacking. “A long legal battle is looming, if the government confirms its intentions”, predicts Seita, a subsidiary of the British Imperial Tobacco, in Les Echos. Tobacco manufacturers have already defined their angle of attack: plain packaging would violate intellectual property rights. And they already know the amount of compensation they will claim: 20 billion euros. Finally, their arguments are also well-honed: the neutral package would encourage counterfeiting. And in Australia, which implemented the measure in 2012, it would be “a fiasco”, says Imperial Tobacco in Les Echos.
In France, tobacco companies are particularly upset against the measure to be officially announced this Thursday, September 25. “The latter had indeed received the assurance that the President of the Republic had rejected Marisol Touraine’s project at the beginning of July. And that he agreed with the opinion of the Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, unfavorable to the generic package, ”indicates Le Figaro. In fact, they expected a rise in the price of tobacco. But this measure could be abandoned, specifies the daily, to try to preserve the purchasing power of smokers. Too bad, because all the studies have shown it: the most effective measure in terms of public health is a frank and massive increase in the price of tobacco!
