Political scandals aside, the most important thing about the European Commission’s proposed tobacco directive that was at long last unveiled earlier this week is that it has now finally seen the light of day. It had been feared that, with the resignation, or perhaps the removal, of former EU health Commissioner John Dalli that the legislation that the new rules had been indefinitely delayed.
But that was obviously not the case and Malta’s new EU Commissioner Tonio Borg, who inherited his predecessor’s entire portfolio, thorny tobacco directive included, deserves congratulations for having pushed it through so quickly, as he had pledged.
The new and strengthened rules on how tobacco products can be manufactured, presented, and sold hold a number of positives such as the new requirement to have all tobacco packages 75% covered with picture and text health warnings, a prohibition of flavoured tobacco and of tobacco products with increased toxicity and addictiveness; the retention of the ban on snus, except in Sweden; and the setting of a ceiling on the nicotine content in electronic cigarettes.
EU countries are also at liberty to introduce the requirement of plain packing on all tobacco products. “in duly justified cases”, and it is hoped that as many member states as possible find such justification.
As some anti-smoking lobbies have pointed out, the new legislation is a step in the right direction, but it will clearly be up to other ongoing efforts as well as new efforts by individual countries to take some of the steps that will really make a difference.
Yes, a sizeable increase in the text and pictorial warnings on cigarette packets will go some way toward dissuading people from the habit, especially those who do not already smoke and prevention after all is crucial. The measure will, however, have as little, or less, impact on current smokers than the introduction of such warnings had in the first place.
Snus, as we have seen from recent experience, is not very widely used in Malta, nor are flavoured tobaccos and as such these two measures cannot be seen as having much of an impact on this country either.
What would have a major impact, however, would be the introduction of far higher taxes on all tobacco products such as those levied in the UK and Canada. Strangely enough, it has been shown in other countries with far higher tobacco taxation rates that where health scares have not worked, price hikes have.
And here in Malta, unlike price hikes in water and utility rates, the price of cigarettes however high is not something that anyone could possibly find any justification to complain about – not any political party nor any smoker. It is a political no-brainer and one wonders why it has not been done before since the public coffers could no doubt do with a little bit of a boost.
Moreover, once tobacco is seen to be taking a more noticeable chunk out of smokers’ disposable incomes, rest assured that smokers will begin to cut down on the habit pretty quick which in the long run means a decrease in the country’s health bill.
The new legislation will now need to be passed through by the European Parliament, where amendments could strengthen it further, as well as the Council of Ministers and it is expected to be adopted in 2014 so that it could come into effect 2015 or 2016 when it will hopefully see the light of day. But in the meantime, there is a lot more that Malta, other member states and smokers themselves could do in a far shorter time frame.