Get Ready for Plain Packaging

Smoking is a habit that drains your money, kills you slowly one puff after another. Until and unless we raise our voice together and discourage the use of tobacco products, the children can't live their life to the fullest and ensure their bright future. So, let's plan for plain packaging i.e. restrict or prohibit the uses of logos, colors, brand images, or any promotional information on packaging and insert the series of images depicting mouth cancer, deformed fetuses and other documented consequences of tobacco use. This will surely reduce the use of tobacco and ensure healthy life of the people.

Tobacco is a product prepared from the leaves of the tobacco plant by curing them. It contains alkaloid nicotine which is stimulant. It's use is a risk factor of many diseases like leukemia , lung cancer, stomach cancer, pancreas cancer, cervix cancer, stroke, blindness, gum infection, hardening of arteries, reduced fertility, asthma etc. In 2008, WHO named tobacco as the world's single greatest cause of premature death. It estimates that each year tobacco causes about 6 million deaths i.e. about 10 percent of all deaths. About 90 percent of the smokers die of lung cancer, 80 percent of the smokers die of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 17 percent of smokers die of heart diseases. Smokers are 12 to 13 times more likely to die of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases than non smokers. Every year 100,000 people die in the UK because of smoking, 17 percent of the total mortality in the USA is because of tobacco use. In Nepal 1000 cases of cancer are recorded every year and its cause is expected to be the use of tobacco. One study found that male and female smokers loose an average of 13.2 and 14.5 years of life respectively. In Nepal, an adult consumes 83 cigarettes in average every year. Each cigarette that is smoked is estimated to shorten life by an average of 11 minutes. So, when you light a cigarette, you burn your life every time. Benjamin Waterhouse has said, "Tobacco is a filthy weed that drains your purse, burns your cloth and makes a chimney of your nose". Truly this only fills your inside with toxin and tars. Realizing this fact, Nepal has made significant progress towards tobacco control in last few decades.

Nepal came signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2003 A.D and drafted it in 2006 A.D. The Constituent Assembly approved the Tobacco Product Control and Regulatory Bill 2010 on April 11, 2012. This was recorded as the landmark in the nation's campaign against tobacco. It's major features were to ban smoking completely in public places, work places and transportation; to ban the sales of individual cigarettes; prohibit unlicensed vendors from selling tobacco products; deem tobacco sales to minor and pregnant woman. It also introduced high health tax on tobacco products and totally banned the advertisement, promotion and sponsorship of these products. The Ministry of Health and Population of Nepal was also awarded the 2015 Bloom berg Philanthropies' Award for Global Tobacco Control Act at the 16th World Conference on Tobacco held in Abu Dhabi, UAE in March 2015. Nepal is planning to cover 90% of the surface area of all tobacco packaging with harrowing images designed to warn consumers of health consequences. Nepal is well on the way of its implementation. This is expected to reduce the tobacco consume by 25 percent. This can be known as plain packaging.

Plain packaging is an important demand reduction measure that reduces the attractiveness of the tobacco products, restricts use of tobacco packing as a form of advertising and promotion, limits misleading packaging and labeling, and increases the effectiveness of health warnings. It refers to the restriction of the use of logos, colors, broad images or promotional information on packaging other than brand name and product name in standard color and font size. In 1989, the New Zealand Department of Health's Toxic Substances Board first recommended that cigarettes be sold only in white packs with black text and no other colors and logos. Public health officials in Canada developed proposals for plain packaging of tobacco products in 1990s. However tobacco industry lobbying and changes in government ministries dropped the proposal. Australia with the enactment of the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act in 2011 became the first country in the world to require tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging. The act enforced that the products manufactured since October 2012 and all sale since December 2012 must be plain packaged. In 2014, Ireland announced that it was proposing legislation that would make it the first country in the European Union and second in the world to introduce plain packaging. Ireland's Minister for Health published details of the government proposal, Public Health (Standardize Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2014 on 10th June, 2014. Till now only 5 percent of the world's population lives in countries with comprehensive national bans and tobacco advertising and promotion. A number of countries are in advanced stages of considering adoption of plain packaging laws in forthcoming years. Experts have urged the government and policy makers to introduce and implement plain packaging in Nepal by following the footsteps of other countries including Australia to reduce the attractiveness of such products.

In Nepal about 35.3 percent are illiterate. They are unaware about the risk factor of tobacco. But if the package of such products is done in less attractive way by showing the harmful effects of its use, they will be surely discouraged as it's clearly seen. In some countries, various studies and research were done to know about the feeling of smoker towards plain packet. Studies comparing colorful branded cigarette packs with plain cardboard packs bearing the name and number of cigarettes in small font with big images of health hazards were found to be significantly less attractive. Additionally research in which young adults were instructed to use plain packs of cigarettes and asked about their feeling towards them confirmed findings that plain packaging increased negativity about the packs and smoking. Behaviors like hiding or covering the pack, smoking less around others, going out without cigarettes and increased thinking about quitting started among the youths after plain packaging. When they were asked the reason behind the change in their behavior, they replied that the four key themes forced them to do so and they were: plain pack colors have negative connotations; plain packs weaken attachment to brands; plain packs project a less desirable smoker identity; the plain packs exposed the reality of smoking. This shows that they had a great psychological impact of the plain packs. Sigmund Freud has stated that any change is possible only when it creates a psychological impact. The effects of plain packaging show that it is giving negative impact to smokers on tobacco.

The time has come to make plain package for tobacco products. The packet of such products should be made big but the quantity should be very less. If the surface of the product will be big, the pictures of horrifying effects of its use like mouth cancer, damaged fetuses will be seen more dangerous. The packet should be black or white colored as they are less attractive than the other colors. The name of the company and no. of cigarettes or other tobacco products should be mentioned in small font. It should look so scary that even the addicts would leave it. This would be an effective tool for educating smokers as well as non-smokers about the health risks of tobacco use. When the smokers buy the product, they se the horrifying effects of the tobacco. One day they may neglect, next day they may neglect but they can't neglect forever. Slowly they reduce its consumption and become non-smokers. So it is an effective weapon to fight the burden of cancer and heart diseases. Similarly, non-smokers won't even try to taste it. Along with this, government should impose high tax on these products. As the price increases and the packet become unattractive, people would discard it. It's time for policy makers to adopt legislation or regulation to implement plain packaging of tobacco products as part of comprehensive, multispectral approaches to tobacco control. The health warnings should be strengthened day by day to ban on misleading packaging and labeling. It must be able to ban the advertisement, promotion and sponsorship of these products. A formal plan should be implemented to enforce it properly. This should be able to resist the interference of tobacco industry in this plan and should ensure the above mentioned measures are well enforced or not. This will obviously decrease the consumption of tobacco. This not only protect their health but also secure their children's wasted on tobacco would be used to invest in their child's future.  This as a whole develops the nation in their child's future. This as a whole develops the nation with peace and security.

Plain packaging reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products which eliminate the effects of tobacco packaging as a form of advertisement and promotion. This helps us to win the battle against tobacco and consequently win the war against cancer. Hence, from today let's put down our lighter and be brighter or get ready for plain packaging.