Tobacco Industry Takes a Hit Due to Plain Packaging

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There have been many changes in tobacco usage over the years, thirty five years ago about 45 percent of men and 30 percent of women smoked in Australia. The number now has come down to 16.4 percent of men and 13.9 percent of women who smoke daily.

Even the teenage smoking rate has gone down; it was 28 percent for17 year old boys and 34 percent for girls who smoked in 1996. Now it’s 16 percent boys and 13 percent girls in Australia.The dramatic fall in the rate of teenagers smoking has fallen covertly, as since 1992 all the tobacco ban advertising and sponsorship and all the quit campaigns were targeted towards their smoking parents, they learned early that smoking is something to be avoided in life.

Even then there are those who still smoke, those who are thoroughly addicted to cigarettes, who either can’t or don’t want to quit. However when it comes to retarded number, it’s not just the occasional smokers who have quit, even the heavy, hard core smokers have quit. In case the heavy smokers were left to smoke then the average daily consumption would be rising, but it didn’t, rather it has decreased.

In a 2002 study called International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Survey, where 8,000 smokers were interviewed form four nations, the United States, the United Kingdom Australia and Canada, it was found that the experience of regret of having started smoking was almost universal. “If you had to do it over again, you would not have started smoking,” was the statement agreed or strongly agreed by 90 percent of the smokers in the survey. There are hardly any smokers who would hope for their children to take up smoking, even when they become adults, as reported by The Conversation.As per the statistics, out of every 200 people, just three are happy about smoking. 40 percent of smokers seriously attempt to quit each year. $1.8 billion is spent by smokers all around the world for quitting treatments. They may desperately smoke only hoping they didn’t and wishing to quit. Cigarettes are one of the products in the history of commerce which makes the consumers feel awful about consuming it.

A large number of smokers welcome restrictions, like places where they can’t smoke, tax rises, and morbid pictures on the pack, according to many studies. They believe that these signs help them regulate their smoking habits. Just one out of ten smokers now smoke at home and 58 percent of Victorian smokers believe that eventually sale of cigarettes should be banned.

However, other parts of the world still suffer with high number of people hooked to the fatal habit.

As per another study from a rural tobacco growing region in China, 89 percent of the illiterate males smoke. The tobacco industry plans and aims at large, poorly educated population with ideally corrupt officials.

Nowadays, the Tobacco websites sympathetically ‘agree’ that smoking leads to health problems, they smartly promote new reduced harmful products, in the hope that smokers will switch to these less risky products. The tobacco companies tactfully oppose any policy that threatens to actually reduce smoking rate.176 nations have now sanctioned the legal binding with World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, compelling these countries to introduce the sort of policies to repress smoking. The countries which haven’t sanctioned any legal binding are the tobacco states, such as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Cuba, Haiti and the tobacco industry hub Indonesia, where even now the western rock and pop performances assist tobacco giants to promote smoking at massive musical fests.

Diseases caused by tobacco has turned epidemic which started about 120 years with the invention of safety match, the mechanization of cigarette manufacturing. The efforts of advertising industry and the addiction chemists of the tobacco industry added to the high tobacco sale. Many countries have started using many methods like plain packaging to curb the death toll caused by smoking. However, the world’s largest and poorest nations are yet to consider steps and method to do the same.

Smoking has been a social concern over years now, globally and the governments are making amends to prevent people from consuming tobacco, in India more than smoking, chewing tobacco rates are high, which has lead to sever health issues.