|
HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Is Additional Measure Needed To Curb Smoking? Smoking is bad for health! This message is not new at all and it can be heard and seen very often. Sadly, there are still people continue burning countless of cigarettes. Research has shown that smoking will lead to heart disease, several types of cancer including lung cancer, stroke and emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Take United States as example, there is an estimated 46,000 Americans died of heart disease caused by secondhand smoke every year. Experts also warn that the heart disease rates in non-smoking adults could be raised by as high as 30 percent if they were exposed to secondhand smoke over a long period of time. In Australia, some 15,000 Australians die of smoking-related disease each year. Meanwhile, cigarette burning also cost Australia about 31.5 billions Australian dollars a year in healthcare and lost of productivity. Governments and authorities in many countries including United States and Europe have banned smoking in public places like restaurants and pubs. It does not seem that there is a sharp decline in the number of smokers. So should additional step be required to curb smoking? Apparently, the Australians have thought so and have proposed the new measure. Australia would be the world’s first nation to ban logos and branding on cigarette packets. Under the new proposed legislation, cigarettes can only be sold in plain, standardized packages with effect from 2012. The packages must also carry large and graphic warnings against smoking and the brand name must be in small print. In addition, the taxes on cigarettes have been raised by 25 percent from April 29, 2010. This would every package of 30 would add about A$2 (or US$1.85). The additional taxes will be used for the healthcare.
In the meantime, the Australian government also planned new curbs on Internet tobacco advertising and would spend A$27.8 million on a so-called 'hard-hitting' anti-smoking campaign. As the new packages carry no colorful branding or logos, it seems that the Australian government has decided to close down the last vestige of advertising opportunity remained for the tobacco companies. In Australia, tobacco advertising has already been prohibited and smoking is also banned in most enclosed public places like offices and restaurants. The new steps taken by the Australian government has drawn mixed reaction from both the health organizations and the tobacco companies. On one hand, it is believed that the new packaging would help prevent children from experimenting with cigarettes. This is because research evidence has confirmed retail displays would tend to induce children towards smoking and make them prone to experiment with tobacco products. More importantly, the new measure will not only save lives but also reduce the burden on the health system with fewer smokers contracted with cardiovascular disease and cancer. On the other hand, spokespersons from tobacco companies planned to challenge the new legislation on the packaging because they trust this would certainly affect their profits. They argued that branding has commercial value. Plain packaging simply prevents a consumer to identify one brand from another. This would certainly affect the value of their business. Anticipating strong resistance from the tobacco industry, the Australian government will carefully draft the legislation to withstand the possible legal challenge. Incidentally, New Zealand also raised on April 29, 2010 the price of cigarettes by 10 percent with a further 10 percent hike at the start of 2011 and 2012 hoping such move would save hundreds of lives.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright
2007-2012 © HowToPreventHeartDisease.com . All Rights Reserved.d....... |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
