• 12/26/2005
  • Australia
  • Elizabeth Gosch
  • The Australian (www.theaustralian.news.com.au)

Tobacco companies are side-stepping a recent agreement with the consumer watchdog by replacing the banned words “light” and “mild” with suggestive colours and numbers on cigarette packs.

Anti-smoking groups accused tobacco companies yesterday of using dirty tricks to get around their agreement with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to remove the words “light” and “mild” from cigarette packets.

A $9million television, print and radio advertising campaign warning consumers that low-tar cigarettes are not a healthier alternative began yesterday.

The campaign is funded by fines levied on three of the country’s major tobacco companies by the ACCC.

“The television advertisements are very effective. They make it clear that any cigarette pack which is coloured differently or has numbers on it should not create the impression that those cigarettes are less harmful or less toxic,” ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said.

From March, smokers will get another strong disincentive with graphic images of mouth cancer, gangrene and open heart surgery replacing written warnings on cigarette packs.

The series of 14 colour photos includes images of a stroke-damaged brain, a blind eye and cancerous lungs.

Earlier this year, the ACCC found Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Imperial had been using misleading advertising.

The companies agreed to remove the “light”, “mild” and related descriptions and numbers from packaging, stop making health representations relating to those terms and contribute $9million in funding for a consumer education campaign.

Action on Smoking and Health Australia chief executive Anne Jones said that while the ads were welcome, the tobacco companies had already broken the agreement.

“The message is a strong one – that is, that all tobacco products are toxic regardless of the colour of the pack, the name or the number,” she said.

“But the tobacco companies are side-stepping the agreement by using replacement terms and pack colouring.

“They have a long history of misleading advertising and will always work in the grey area of the law.”

More than 90 per cent of Australian smokers – about 2.7million people – smoke low-tar brands. But studies show they are more likely to inhale more deeply, hold the smoke for longer and take more puffs.

Quit executive director Todd Harper yesterday renewed the call for generic tobacco packaging and said the colouring of packs was a particular concern.

“Tobacco industry documents themselves state that red packs connote strong flavour, green packs connote coolness or menthol and white packs are suggestive of a low-tar cigarette that is sanitary and safe,” Mr Harper said.

“New words like ‘smooth’, ‘fresh’ and ‘fine’ have already started appearing and together with pack colours and imagery they continue to build on the deception that some cigarettes are safer than others.”

Efforts to contact tobacco companies yesterday were unsuccessful.

Since warnings on cigarette packs were introduced in the early 1990s, and the anti-smoking campaign took hold in the form of smoke-free zones, smoking rates in Australia have dropped 10 per cent.

Last year, 17.4per cent of people aged 14 and over smoked regularly, compared with 19.5per cent in 2001 and 29per cent in the late 80s.