{"id":4824,"date":"2012-01-03T02:01:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T18:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/plain-to-see-curtin-expert-lands-big-blow-against-tobacco\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:06:49","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:06:49","slug":"plain-to-see-curtin-expert-lands-big-blow-against-tobacco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/plain-to-see-curtin-expert-lands-big-blow-against-tobacco\/","title":{"rendered":"Plain to see: Curtin expert lands big blow against tobacco"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Professor Mike Daube believes new plain packaging will dissuade people from smoking.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After months of debate in the media and parliament, new laws requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging will officially come into effect in Australia in 2012, and Curtin researcher Professor Mike Daube couldn\u2019t be happier.<\/p>\n

The renowned public health expert was one of the driving factors in the law\u2019s introduction, by chairing the committee which first recommended the changes to the Federal government.<\/p>\n

After passing both houses of parliament in November, the new law will see all cigarettes sold in a plain brown pack, adorned only with health warnings and graphic imagery, from December 1, 2012.<\/p>\n

Professor Daube said he was delighted after years of championing the initiative to government officials. He first chaired a government committee recommending plain-packaging for cigarettes almost 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows you that in public health, \u2018overnight success\u2019 takes time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While Australia has drastically reduced the number of smokers over the years, with only 15 per cent of adults now smoking, Professor Daube said further preventative measures were still vital to reduce the impact of cigarettes on the Australian population.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still our largest cause of death and disease,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlain packaging isn\u2019t a magic bullet; it\u2019s one component of the strategy we need. What\u2019s important is the government isn\u2019t introducing plain-packaging on its own; it\u2019s introducing a suite of measures, like public education, an indigenous smoking program and measures to protect non-smokers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut even on its own, plain-packaging is probably the most important tobacco measure we\u2019ve seen in 20 years, and one reason we know that is the tobacco companies are opposing it more ferociously than anything we\u2019ve seen in over 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The introduction of plain-packaging was important as it took away the final form of advertising available to tobacco companies, Professor Daube said, before adding there was evidence the approach would both encourage adults to quit, and stop children from taking up the habit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you offer kids two packs, one plain and one glossy with the same cigarettes in each, they think the glossy pack tastes better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia\u2019s the first country to do this; we\u2019re the world leader. Once we\u2019ve done it, other countries will follow. So the global tobacco industry is desperate to prevent it happening here, because they know once it\u2019s happened here then it will spread.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move coincides with Curtin and other WA universities becoming completely cigarette-free from January 2012 onwards, an initiative Professor Daube was also involved with. With only four per cent of Curtin students estimated to be regular smokers, he said the move wouldn\u2019t affect the vast majority of the Curtin community and could be enforced without being heavy handed toward smokers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know the best way to do this is to implement it in a positive way. There will be one or two people who will offend, and that doesn\u2019t mean someone goes and beats them up, they just get a gentle tap on the shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, who\u2019d have thought 20 years ago that Dublin pubs could be smoke free?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Mike Daube, who has been fighting for plain-packaging for two decades, is delighted that the new law will be introduced in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":4825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Daube1.png","author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 01:23:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4824"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}