Sir, – Contrary to Donald Clarke's claim that no Government wants to talk about banning tobacco ("Plain talking about cigarettes, Opinion & Analysis, June 15th), in 2013 the Department of Health's Tobacco Free Ireland document sets out over 60 actions aimed at lowering smoking prevalence to 5 per cent in 2025. This inevitably raises the issue of banning tobacco at some stage.
Mr Clarke claims that if such a ban were introduced, arguments could be made for banning alcohol and other substances. Yet he misses the point that tobacco is the most deadly consumer product ever marketed. It kills when used as it is supposed to be used and is responsible for over 5,000 deaths in this country each year.
It is therefore in a category on its own; nobody is talking about banning alcohol.
Plain packaging of tobacco has been shown in dozens of high-quality studies internationally to reduce the appeal of tobacco to smokers, including children; and to increase the likelihood that they will take notice of health warnings and to prevent the tobacco industry from giving misleading messages about the dangers of tobacco. For this reason, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland is strongly supportive of Minister for Health James Reilly and the Government on this issue.
As Nicola Roxon, former minister for health and former attorney general in Australia, pointed out in "Plain lessons from Australia" (Opinion & Analysis, June 18th), the multinational tobacco industry spends a lot of money designing cigarette packs aimed at attracting new smokers (overwhelmingly children) and is extremely worried at the prospect of losing the last remaining vestige of advertising in Ireland. They are currently orchestrating a massive campaign aimed at intimidating the Irish Government to try to overturn the introduction of plain packaging. Our children and our grandchildren would not thank us for bowing to this intimidation. – Yours, etc,
Dr PAT DOORLEY,
Chairman,
Policy Group
on Tobacco,
Royal College
of Physicians of Ireland,
Kildare Street,
Dublin 2.