The Tobacco Template

It has been claimed, by ASH (Deborah Arnott), on February 2012 that:

Thirdly, the “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false. The same argument was used against the ban on tobacco advertising, but 9 years after the tobacco ban in the UK, alcohol advertising is still permitted with no sign of it being prohibited. Tobacco is a uniquely dangerous consumer product which is why there is a WHO health treaty (the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) to regulate tobacco use.

Previously Simon Chapman on May 30 2011:

The tobacco industry and its stooges played the same slippery slope arguments over advertising bans, sports sponsorship bans and pack warnings . Ad bans started 35 years ago. No alcohol advertising ban and no momentum I’m aware of other than breaking the sport/alcohol nexus. So the slope ain’t very slippery folks ...

Sadly, it is their statement that is false, not the domino theory. This page lists attempts by organisations and goverments to copy the 'tobacco template' in order to denormalise users of, or reduce consumption of, products.

General Controls

General stuff not covered below

The Guardian; CIF - Demonising junk food for the children - 14 April 2012

Aseem Malhotra, a 'cardiology specialist registrar' starts off his polemic with the title and subtitle:

We must demonise junk food for the sake of our children

We must educate children properly about nutrition if we are to stand a chance of altering the statistics on obesity

Followed by an image of some extremely obese British kids gorging themselves on fast food:

Quite.

If we are going to really alter the statistics on obesity we need to concentrate on the next generation. The banning of junk food in schools needs to be enforced and headteachers have a major role to play. In some schools, the head will write a letter to parents forbidding children from bringing in such unhealthy snacks, but others are either too fearful, don't believe it will have an effect, or don't believe it's their responsibility. What is the point of a good education if the child who receives it becomes limited by premature bad health?

Why should schools dictate to parents how to feed their children in such a manner?

The demonisation of junk food must be supported by compulsory cooking lessons and food education promoting nutritious real food. I call on the Department for Education to introduce this into every primary school.

When did secondary schools stop providing 'home-economics'? And I can see the elf and safety groups jumping on the idea that a 5 year old should be operating an oven. Then again, I may have just answered my first question.

The Guardian; CiF - Alcohol and Obesity

Public health campaigners once thought the National Health Service, along with drains and clean air, was going to make the UK well. It soon became clear it wasn't going to, but even so, it had captured almost all the resources available for health. Single-issue campaigns then sprang up promoting seatbelts, the breathalyser and lead-free petrol. They followed a similar trajectory: professional awareness of a problem and its solution; campaigns for public awareness, which in turn provoked mounting reasons from industry against action; followed, eventually, by a government willing to face down the charge of trampling on individual freedoms and daring to legislate. It is almost impossible to imagine how fiercely drivers once fought for their right to drink, drive and fly unrestrained through the windscreen. Now the memory of the determination to protect the right to make the person next to you breathe your cigarette smoke is slowly dimming too.

But the next campaign for better public health is in a different league. Alcohol and obesity – what we eat and how much we drink – these are the stuff of our very souls. From warning of the public implications of personal actions to changing the actions themselves, The campaigners have to cross a boundary more contentious than any they have overcome before. They have to tackle problems linked with poverty without swelling the populist clamour against the poor. They have to frame a debate about the health implications of overeating and problem drinking that doesn't dwell only on a cost-benefit analysis on behalf of the NHS. And they have to do it when most people think Whitehall, far from knowing best, knows little of real life at all.

GAPC - Alcohol

• “What worked for Tobacco Control?” - Ms. Shoba John
• “Control marketing: lessons learn from tobacco control movement” Ms. Bungon Ritthiphakdee

MD, PhD and a DrPH, California - Sweeteners

Added sweeteners pose dangers to health that justify controlling them like alcohol, argue Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt and Claire D. Brindis

And they claim it contributes to 35million deaths a year worldwide and is so dangerous it should be controlled through taxation and legislation.

Higher Taxes

Ever higher taxes are imposed with the belief that they will either (1) increase the tax the government receives or (2) reduce consumption by pricing consumers out of the market. (Obviously it can't do both at the same time.)

However, unintended consequences occur in the form of (a) increased sales on the black market and/or those (legitimately or not) obtaining their supplies from abroad and (b) increase in poverty because the hardest hit (and of which, demographically, tend to smoke more) are the poor who are either unwilling or unable to cut down or give up.

[Minimum Pricing], while not increasing the tax-take to the government, is a form of this.

Mike Rayner - Department of Public Health at Oxford University - food - May 16 2012

"Fat taxes" would have to increase the price of unhealthy food and drinks by as much as 20% in order to cut consumption by enough to reduce obesity and other diet-related diseases

He called for a 12p tax on soft drinks, even bigger than the 2 cents tax introduced in France, claiming it would prevent several thousand deaths a year as people switched to healthier drinks. [...] Mr Rayner said taxes were already used to discourage people from drinking or smoking and a fat tax plan would raise money for the Treasury and prevent people dying.

In all of this I see a sacred dimension. You may not believe that I have heard God aright but I think God is calling me to work towards the introduction of soft-drink taxes in this country and I am looking forward to the day when General Synod debates the ethical issues surrounding this type of tax rather than some of the other issues that august body seems obsessed by. [Emphasis added]

Thomas Gaziano, Harvard School of Medicine - salt - April 21, 2012

While a taxation increase of 40 per cent on industry prices (similar to tobacco), determined by previous work to lead to a 6 per cent reduction in consumption, was also evaluated.

The analysis found that both strategies would be save money by reducing the number of people needing treatment for hypertension and CVD events such as myocardial infarction (heart attacks) and stroke.

Sadly there was either insufficient funding, or insufficient time to determine the incidence of Hyponatremia (and the associated costs) that this would cause as a result.

Denmark - October 2011

Denmark has introduced what is believed to be the world's first fat tax - a surcharge on foods that are high in saturated fat.

Butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food are now subject to the tax if they contain more than 2.3% saturated fat.

Doctor - Wales - fatty foods

An expert on obesity has called for a tax on fatty foods to help reduce the number of overweight people in Wales.

Dr Nadim Haboubi runs a weight management clinic and has advised on government strategy to tackle obesity

United Nations - food

In De Schutter(2011), it looks towards "Using taxation to encourage healthy diets" (page 17)

The introduction of food taxes and subsidies to promote a healthy diet constitutes a cost-effective and low-cost population-wide intervention that can have a significant impact. (page 17)

50 (d) Impose taxes on soft drinks (sodas), and on HFSS foods, in order to subsidize access to fruits and vegetables and educational campaigns on healthy diets; (page 21)

Bans

Lucy Holmes - UK - Tits on Page 3 of The Sun - 26 Aug 2012

Lucy Holmes, a women's rights activist, and "Television and Radio Personality and the worlds greatest Kylie Minogue Tribute Artist" petitions Dominic Mohan, the current editor of The Sun newspaper, to stop its 42-yr old tradition of showing topless models on Page 3.

George Alagiah doesn’t say, ‘And now let’s look at Courtney, 21, from Warrington’s bare breasts,’ in the middle of the 6 O’ Clock News, does he, Dominic?

Philip and Holly don’t flash up pictures of Danni, 19, from Plymouth, in just her pants and a necklace, on This Morning, do they, Dominic?

No, they don’t.

There would be an outcry.

And you shouldn’t show the naked breasts of young women in your widely read ‘family’ newspaper either.

Consider this a long overdue outcry.

Dominic, stop showing topless pictures of young women in Britain’s most widely read newspaper, stop conditioning your readers to view women as sex objects.

Enough is enough.

Lucy's contribution to women's rights, it appears, is to remove their right to be photographed and be paid for it. Because Lucy doesn't like it, no one else must be able to like it.

Her arguments, however, seem to be a bit flawed; for example the reason the 6 o'clock news and This Morning don't show topless women is because they're not allowed to.

And if MS. Holmes has an objection to children seeing naked breasts, I cannot wait for her campaign to stop women breastfeeding their own children. Especially in public.

Health Officials - New Zealand - 'Fast Food' - 6 Aug 2012

Health officials worried about an obesity epidemic want fast-food advertising dropped from public property, including bus shelters, and are questioning fast-food and soft-drink sponsorship of public events.

They have also raised concerns over the lack of political power to stop fast-food restaurants being built near schools and in poor areas.

[...]

[Aukland health board clinical director Dr Robyn Toomath said...]"We've reached that purist approach with tobacco, completely hardline. There's no way in the world we would have a Rothman's Centre for Kids in Hospital. You start off saying we won't promote the sale of goods, then the next step is [not allowing] sponsorship of these companies."

Michael Bloomberg New York - Giving out milk formula to new mothers - 30 Jul 2012

Mayor Bloomberg has demanded that hospitals stop handing out baby formula to persuade more new mothers to breastfeed their babies.

The New York City health department will monitor the number of formula bottles being given out and demand a medical reason for each one.

From September 3, 27 out of 40 hospitals in the city have agreed to the terms of the Latch On initiative - which will also see them stop handing out free bags of formula and bottles.

UK - Sale of video games - 30 Jul 2012

In another example of Grandad's Law the PEGI ratings system now has the force of law behind it instead of being merely 'guidance.'

Retailers that sell video games to children are now liable for imprisonment or a fine, under a tough new age-classification system designed to crack down on violent and unsuitable content.

Under the new rules that came into force on Monday, all games sold in the UK will now be regulated under a system called PEGI, the Pan European Game Information scheme, which makes it illegal to sell 12-rated video games to children under that age for the first time.

Until now the British Board of Film Classification has provided 15 and 18 certificates that are legally enforceable. But there had never been the equivalent for 12-rated games, making it technically legal for children to buy them.

Simon Chapman - Secondhand Sunbeds - 1 July 2012

Struggling solarium operators are offloading unwanted sunbeds online, prompting calls for a government buyback of the machines to prevent dangerous in-home tanning.

[...]

A professor of public health at the University of Sydney, Simon Chapman, said it would be a public service for state governments to buy the machines at the low market price and destroy them, or to outlaw reselling them.

ScotRail - alcohol (and drunks) - July 2012

Alcohol is being banned from Scottish trains in the evenings and mornings, following concerns about drink-fuelled anti-social behaviour.

ScotRail has decided to prohibit the carrying and consumption of alcohol on its services between 21:00 and 10:00, starting on 20 July. Drunk people would be banned from travelling on trains under the crackdown.

They appear to expect drunk people (not carrying alcohol) to pay extra for taxis instead of using their trains.

Scotland - multi-buy ban doesn't work - June 2012

A report by NHS Scotland has shown “no obvious change” in alcohol sales as a result of the ban on multibuy promotions on alcohol in Scotland.

The report showed a 4.2% drop in overall per adult sales volumes of alcohol in the 33 weeks after the ban was introduced last October, but it also said there had been a reduction in sales of 3.3% in England and Wales in the same period.

Wine, beer and spirits all saw declines of between 4% and 5% in Scotland, though cider got off lightly with sales more or less flat.

However, they still want minimum pricing:

The Scottish government said in response that “the quantity discount ban will be most effective when used alongside minimum pricing”, which is scheduled to come into force in Scotland some time after April next year(2013).

New York City Board of Health - supersized drinks and popcorn - June 2012

The board hand-picked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that must approve his ban of selling large sugar-filled drinks at restaurants might be looking at other targets.

[...]

At the meeting, some of the members of board said they should be considering other limits on high-calorie foods.

One member, Bruce Vladeck, thinks limiting the sizes for movie theater popcorn should be considered.

[...]

Another board member thinks milk drinks should fall under the size limits.

New York Times Debate - air conditioning - June 2012

Should Air-Conditioning Go Global, or Be Rationed Away?

Temperatures in New York City have pushed toward 100 degrees this week, and air-conditioners strained the power grid (thanks in part to stores with their doors open). Meanwhile the demand for coolant gases, especially in rapidly developing countries like India, threatens to accelerate global warming.

Is it a good goal for everyone in the world to have access to air-conditioning — like clean water or the Internet? Or is it an unsustainable luxury, which air-conditioned societies should be giving up or rationing?

National Obesity Forum (UK) - fizzy drinks - May 2012

Supersize fizzy drinks should be banned from cinemas, restaurants and sports grounds in London to curb obesity, health experts say.

Anti-obesity campaigner Tam Fry today called on Mayor Boris Johnson to copy New York, which has imposed a 16oz limit on the sale of sugary drinks.

The ban applies to restaurants, cinemas and sports stadiums, and includes Coca-Cola, Pepsi and some iced-coffee drinks sold in Starbucks. Starbucks’s largest iced coffee in the UK is the Venti, which is 20oz. The equivalent is 22oz in the US, where the largest offering is the 31oz Trenta.

Mr Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, said the move by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was the way forward to tackle the capital’s obesity epidemic. In an interview with the Standard, he said: “London should take a leaf out of New York’s book. Everything Michael Bloomberg does is backed up with perfectly good science. If England were to follow more what America was doing then we would be in a much better situation.”

Assemblyman William Monning (California) - food vans 'outside schools' - Feb 2012

In an effort to stop kids from running away from their 'healthy school meals' Assemblyman William 'Bill' Monning decided that was was needed was bill that bans food truck operators from vending within a quarter-mile of any school. Businesses were not happy at the unintended consequences:

“The problem is that many of the businesses that we serve are near schools,” said Nancy Nguyen, an owner and operator of O Mi Ninja, a Vietnamese food truck operating out of Santa Clara County. “If you're K through 9 [four-13 yr olds], you're not even allowed to leave campus. I've never seen a food truck directly across from a school.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Monning, but fortunately for all those businesses affected, the bill was dropped. Not because he realised it was a bad idea, but:

Monning, chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, said his measure lacked enough votes to win approval this year.

"Our calculus was: It was still not ready for prime time," Monning said, adding that he would look for other ways to address his concerns about obesity among schoolchildren.

UK Heart Surgeon - Butter - Jan 2010

Butter should be banned to protect the nation's health, according to a leading heart surgeon.

Shyam Kolvekar says only radical action can save growing numbers of young adults from heart attacks and clogged arteries.

[...]

Mr Kolvekar, a consultant at University College London Hospitals, said: 'By banning butter and replacing it with a healthy spread the average daily sat-fat intake would be reduced by eight grams.

'This would save thousands of lives each year and help to protect them from cardiovascular disease - the UK's biggest killer.

UK Parents - Childrens' books in Libraries

Classic stories including Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and The Nutcracker were "too scary and sinister" for children, according to some parents who complained about their presence on library shelves, while Dahl's story books Revolting Rhymes and Even More Revolting Rhymes were attacked for their "coarse language". In Dahl's version of Little Red Riding Hood, the heroine takes a decidedly Dahl-ian approach to offing the wolf. "The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers. / She whips a pistol from her knickers. / She aims it at the creature's head, / And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead."

Librarians in East Sussex removed copies of Babar's Travels, in which one of the cartoon elephant's adventures finds him faced with 'savage cannibals'.[...]Those wishing to borrow it must now order it specially, after staff upheld a complaint that it contained offensive stereotypes of black Africans.[...]A similar complaint saw staff in Lewisham, London, remove Herge's Tintin in the Congo, while elsewhere the title has been transferred to the adult's section.

Bans - Advertising

This covers not only direct advertising (identifiable adverts in media) but 'indirect' advertising; e.g. no smoking allowed in children's films (Think Cruella DeVille from 101 Dalmations)

Children’s Food Campaign - Sports Events - 26 July 2012

More Grandad's Law in action:

Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Cadbury’s are being given an “unrivalled platform” to promote unhealthy brands and products at the Olympics, says a new study.

[...]

According to its authors the Children’s Food Campaign, the junk food companies have been given a global platform by London 2012 despite contributing only around 2 per cent of the International Olympic Association’s income.

Children’s Food Campaign is a part of Sustain - an 'alliance' partially funded from grants from government and government related sources. For the financial year ending 2011, of £2.1M income, at least £0.64M was from either government directly, or government funded organisations. This number rises to at least £1.3M if funds from national lotteries are included.

UK Doctors - alcohol - June 2012

Doctors call for ban on TV adverts for alcohol

An alliance of more than 30 leading medical bodies and charities says Britain's "alcohol problem" has become so entrenched that drastic action – which would also include an end to sponsorship of sporting events – is required to protect children and teenagers.

Chief Constable Jon Stoddart of Durham - alcohol - March 2012

One of Britain's most senior police officers has called for a daytime ban on alcohol advertising on TV and in cinemas.

A 9pm watershed is needed because of the harm that alcohol causes, Durham Chief Constable Jon Stoddart told Sky News.

"We have a responsibility as a society to protect our children, and I don't think that's being achieved by pretty much unlimited alcohol advertising on TV," he said.

FakeCharity Sustain (UK) - sweets

Sustain (a FakeCharity) wants to ban supermarket sweet displays

UK Government - alcohol

Following the publication of the Government’s Alcohol Strategy, the Health Committee is to hold an inquiry examining the Government’s proposals so far as they relate to health issues, and in particular will look at: [...]

• Plain packaging and marketing bans.

United Nations - food

50 (c) Adopt statutory regulation on the marketing of food products, as the most effective way to reduce marketing of foods high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, sodium and sugar (HFSS foods) to children, as recommended by WHO, and restrict marketing of these foods to other groups; De Schutter (2011) page 21

Scottish Government - fatty foods/salt/sugar

Television adverts for food high in fat, sugar and salt should not be shown before the 9pm watershed, according to Scotland's public health minister.

US Researchers - Alcohol in films

The results suggest that family focused interventions would have a larger impact on alcohol onset while limiting media and marketing exposure could help prevent both onset and progression.

Australian government - 'junk' food

Greens leader Bob Brown introduced a private members bill last Monday to ban junk food advertising during children’s television viewing times of 6-9 am and 4-9 pm on weekdays, as recommended by the Obesity Policy Coalition.

BMA - alcohol advertising

There should be a ban on all alcohol advertising, including sports and music sponsorship, doctors say.

The British Medical Association said the crackdown on marketing was needed, along with an end to cut-price deals, to stop rising rates of consumption.

Howard Stoate (Dartford, Labour, UK) - alcohol advertising

The only sure way to tackle the problem is removing the alcohol industry's ability to target young people in that way. Banning alcohol advertising and sponsorship from events that are attended by children and young people, or watched by them on TV, is one way to enable young people to develop a healthier relationship with alcohol.

Gory Pictures/Warning Labels

Gory pictures on packets are supposed to deter (potential) smokers. Typically the medical type photographs show nothing that smoking could have caused (perfectly white teeth affected by dental caries, totally blackened lungs when we know smokers lungs are used for transplants, etc.) Warnings usually go ignored.

WCRF - Salt - 23 July 2012

Cutting back on salty foods such as bacon, bread and breakfast cereals may reduce people's risk of developing stomach cancer, according to the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF).

It wants people to eat less salt and for the content of food to be labelled more clearly.

In the UK, the WCRF said one-in-seven stomach cancers would be prevented if people kept to daily guidelines.

Cancer Research UK said this figure could be even higher

Sadly, the article is also full of weasel words: "may reduce," "can lead to," "recommended daily limit," "could be avoided," with little to no evidence that a moderate amount of salt is bad for you without risking hyponatremia.

United States - Soft drinks - 20 july 2012

More than 100 health organizations and municipal public health departments, along with more than two dozen scientists, have asked the U.S. surgeon general to issue a report on sugar-sweetened soft drinks – akin to the landmark 1964 report on tobacco.

BMA - Wine

[T]he British Medical Association is currently demanding that graphic warnings be placed on wine bottles and wants – in their own words – “a complete ban on [alcohol] advertising as has been done very successfully with tobacco.”

Plain Packaging (or Graphic Warnings)

Plain packaging is claimed to reduce the appeal of cigarettes. None of the studies (since it has not been put into practice yet) have conclusively proved that this is the case. Graphic warnings likewise are intended to reduce the appeal. Most are ignored by smokers.

Attwood, Scott-Samuel, Stothart, Munafò (2012) - 3 Sep 2012

In a study that finds it takes longer to drink a poncy French lager if you put it in a straight glass than it would if it was either lager or a soft drink in a fluted glass, they discuss the current state of affairs in the UK with regard to the variety of glasses available in pubs in which drinks may be served:

There may be other potentially modifiable factors which may influence alcohol consumption and drinking rate. These might include marketing signals (i.e., branding), and vehicles for these signals such as the glasses from which beverages are consumed. Legislation to control or limit these signals may therefore influence drinking behaviour. A parallel can be drawn with the tobacco control literature, where plain packaging has been shown to increase visual attention towards health warnings compared with branded packaging in non-smokers and light smokers

UK Government - food/alcohol - June 2012

There are no plans to extend proposals for plain packaging from tobacco to so-called unhealthy foods, the UK Government has told FoodProductionDaily.com

The Department of Health has rejected fears raised by a coalition of packaging companies that plans under consideration to oblige cigarette manufacturers to remove all branding from cartons except the name of the product and a health warning, could lead to the imposition of similar measures on high-fat or sugar-ladened foods.

But as the article points out, it specifically doesn't include alcohol in their statement.

What the article doesn't point out, however, is the obvious:

As anyone who is familiar with the jargon of politics knows, 'we have no plans' is very different from 'we will not'.

South African Dental Association - Alcohol - May 21 2012

The planned use of graphic images on cigarette packs to show the effects of tobacco should be extended to alcohol products as it is more cancerous than tobacco, says the SA Dental Association (Sada).

It said that while smoking increased the risk of people developing cancer up to five times the norm, alcohol usage elevated the risk of contracting mouth cancer ninefold, making alcohol more dangerous.

Australian health activists - alcohol

Health activists who believe even one alcoholic drink can cause cancer are lobbying MPs in Canberra (Jul '11) for limits on how much we consume and how much we pay for it. If they're successful in branding alcohol a carcinogen it could lead to tough restrictions similar to those applied to tobacco, including warnings on labels and laws requiring plain packaging.

UK Government - alcohol

Following the publication of the Government’s Alcohol Strategy, the Health Committee is to hold an inquiry examining the Government’s proposals so far as they relate to health issues, and in particular will look at: [...]

• Plain packaging and marketing bans.