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Voon, Tania --- "Introduction" [2012] ELECD 806; in Voon, Tania; Mitchell, D. Andrew; Liberman, Jonathan; Ayres, Glyn (eds), "Public Health and Plain Packaging of Cigarettes" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Public Health and Plain Packaging of Cigarettes

Editor(s): Voon, Tania; Mitchell, D. Andrew; Liberman, Jonathan; Ayres, Glyn

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857939425

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Voon, Tania

Number of pages: 10

Extract:

1. Introduction
Tania Voon

Plain packaging of cigarettes and other tobacco products represents a
crucial focal point for industry, government, and public health across
the world today. Tobacco poses a serious and widespread threat to
health in developed and developing countries alike, and the question
of how best to deal with that threat in the face of millions of addicted
individuals and a long-entrenched industry raises a host of legal issues.
This volume offers a detailed exploration of some of these issues from a
number of perspectives, providing a rich case study not only of the chal-
lenges of tobacco control regulation but also of health regulation more
generally.
Plain packaging ­ whereby a government requires tobacco products
to be sold in packets of a specified colour and without graphic logos ­
constitutes a particularly pertinent case for investigation, especially in
the light of the groundbreaking WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control1 (`WHO FCTC'). Tobacco use is one of the key risk factors
associated with non-communicable diseases (`NCDs') such as cardiovas-
cular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes (other
common risk factors being alcohol abuse, unhealthy diet, and physical
inactivity). NCDs cause 60 per cent of all deaths in the world, with 80
per cent of deaths due to NCDs occurring in low- and middle-income
countries.2 The World Health Organization (`WHO') and other United
Nations (`UN') bodies are increasingly recognising NCDs as a problem
requiring urgent attention. The international community more broadly
recognised the serious and growing ...