Fiji looks at imposing plain packs

The permanent secretary at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Mecuisela Tuicakau, has suggested that Fiji intends to impose a requirement that tobacco products are sold in standardized packaging, according to a story in The Fiji Times.

Tuicakau said that he hoped Fiji would follow other countries that had introduced or planned to introduce such packaging.

Standard packs would include only the product name, the manufacturer’s name, the quantity of the contents and the health warning, he said.

This would reduce the attractiveness of tobacco products and increase the impact of the health warnings.

Tuicakau said the goals of standardized packaging included eliminating the effects of tobacco packaging as a form of advertising and promotion.

Standardized packaging would also eliminate package design techniques that might suggest that the products inside were less harmful than were others.

Tuicakau likened current tobacco packaging to a mobile billboard that promoted the consumption of tobacco products and distracted from health warnings.

Such packaging deceived people.

“But if you strip back the decoration, gloss and colorful tobacco packaging, you are left with nothing more than a box of deadly and addictive products that kill approximately six million people a year and harms the health of millions more,” he was quoted as saying.