The Health Select Committee
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen
I am Dr. Philip Pattemore, Associate Professor of Paediatrics, University of Otago
Christchurch, and a respiratory and general paediatrician at the Christchurch
Hospital. I am speaking on behalf of the Paediatric Society of New Zealand, and
their submission to the Health Select Committee.
I wish to give a little background, which bears on why a society of child health
professionals is vitally interested in the issue of plain packaging.
Although most people know about the effects of smoking on adults – cancer,
heart disease, stroke and emphysema – very few are aware of the devastating
effects of the exposure of children to tobacco smoking, exposure that is not their
choice. I have shown these in Attachment A at the back of our submission.
Nor do many people realize how the habit of smoking tobacco has a reproductive
lifecycle, just like an organism.
What I mean by this is that when a young person starts smoking, they start
impacting future generations straight away because tobacco affects the DNA in
their sperm and eggs – and you can see from the attachment that there are
preconceptional effects of tobacco, which may affect not only the children but the
grandchildren. Then when the young person becomes an expectant parent, their
smoking affects the health and survival of the unborn child, but also has major
effects on the life of the child after birth – postnatal life. These effects include
increased risks of cot death, meningococcal disease, respiratory disease and
obesity, but exposure in the womb also increases the chance that the child will
later take up smoking. Then, after the child is born, there are additive risks of
being exposed to smoking, especially cot death, potentially life-threatening
diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis, learning difficulties. And then once
again exposure to smoking in the home increases the risk that the child or
adolescent will take up smoking themselves. That child then joins the next
generation of smokers to expose their sperm and eggs, unborn children, and
children to tobacco smoke. This is the reproductive cycle of tobacco smoking. It
is no accident that the child-bearing age, is also the peak age for smoking.
As child health professionals we see these effects on children every day of our
practicing lives. Something like 18,000 pregnancies and 600,000 children in
New Zealand are exposed to tobacco in the home every year. We strive to help
expectant parents, and parents of children to quit. We strive to inoculate the
young against smoking themselves by emphasizing the dangers of smoking. But
all of our efforts are pitted against the giant marketing engine of Big Tobacco.
It is a fact of everyday life that marketing a product includes not only advertising,
but also packaging of the product. That is why frozen peas are sold in attractive
cardboard packages rather than in clear plastic bags with a price sticker. And
while laws prohibiting advertising of tobacco have addressed one aspect of
marketing, they have not completely removed the appeal of the packaging. The
use of the packaging as a marketing device is clearly spelt out in the quotations
from tobacco companies on the second page of our submission
It is also clear that to maximize the reproductive success of the tobacco habit I
have mentioned, the package must appeal to both children and to their parents.
Of thousands of tobacco industry memos published on the internet by court
orders, there are many that deal with marketing to children. One tobacco
company stated: “If you are really and truly not going to sell to children, you are
going to be out of business in 30 years”.
An advertising company for a tobacco company stated that “We have been asked
by our client to come up with a package design…that’s attractive to kids.”
Tobacco packaging has also to attract the young adult smoker, and many
smokers have stated that the look of the pack is a major factor in its continuing
appeal, and contributes to their difficulty in giving up smoking.
And so you have, I put to you, tobacco packs that appeal both to the child and
their parents – a deadly product wrapped in the colours of lolly wrappers,
combined with the design elegance of a fashion accessory.
The Australian experience and surveys in Australia have shown that plain
packaging is less attractive to young people, and makes a negative statement
about the contents of the package. This is appropriate for a product that kills
when used as intended, and harms the lives of thousands of children who have
no choice in the matter. It is not appropriate that such a product is dressed by a
bright-coloured and elegant package.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, it is important that this legislation proceeds
without being frightened by the legal brute force the tobacco industry is trying to
exert on Australia. The goal of the tobacco industry is to frighten other
governments into delaying legislation. They have already succeeded so far in
New Zealand. But bullying tactics should be met with zero tolerance. It is vital if
we are to achieve the goal of a SmokeFree Aotearoa by 2025 and protect the
future of our children, that we mandate plain packaging. This is a matter of
urgency for the health of New Zealand.