World No Tobacco Day

Leading local charity Cancer Focus Northern Ireland today urged Health Minister Edwin Poots to ban branded cigarette packs.

The charity’s call marks World No Tobacco Day on Friday, May 31, and follows the announcement this week that the Republic of Ireland is to make the move to non-branded packs.

Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death globally and kills one in ten adults worldwide. World No Tobacco Day highlights the health risks associated with tobacco use and lobbies for effective policies to lower its use. The theme for this year’s campaign is: ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

Gerry McElwee, Head of Cancer Prevention at Cancer Focus, said: “Thousands of young people in Northern Ireland take up smoking each year – and we want to see that stop.

“Our young people are being manipulated. The Executive and UK Government must recognise that standardised cigarette packaging will help stop young people becoming hooked on a lethal product which kills half its users.

“We demand legislation that will protect our young people from highly branded, brightly coloured packs designed to glamorise tobacco. Every day we delay action allows the tobacco industry another opportunity to recruit the next generation of smokers.”

The packaging of tobacco products remains one of the last overt forms of tobacco promotion allowed in the UK. The tobacco industry uses glitzy packaging to recruit young people, who the industry has cynically termed ‘replacement smokers’, Mr McElwee added. 

“There is no evidence to support the claims of the tobacco industry, and those that represent them, that plain, standardised packaging will bolster the illegal tobacco trade. Standardised packs would carry the same covert markings currently needed to identify illicit tobacco products,” he said.