The Demerara Tobacco Company Limited (Demtoco) is prepared to welcome tougher cigarette packaging rules once legislation to address this issue is presented.
“Once it comes into effect, we will do all that we need to do to ensure that we comply,” Managing Director Malissa Sylvester told Stabroek News on Wednesday. She said that Demtoco will implement whatever is required by law related to packaging, noting “that is almost universal; I know a lot of countries that have done it.”
In response to a query about the effect this will have on the company, Sylvester said such a change will have a cost attached but Demtoco is prepared to deal with this. “For example, if they have to put a picture, it will be changed from a two-colour job to a four-colour one but it will be the cost of doing business,” she explained.
Demtoco is a subsidiary of British American Tobacco (BAT) Industries, formerly British-American Tobacco Company Limited.
Recently, when asked what his ministry is doing about the issue of cigarette packaging, Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran said legislation to address cigarette packaging is currently being drafted as the impact of non-communicable diseases has been recognised. “The idea I think is not to make the cigarette packages attractive and there will be warnings from the Ministry of Health. So yes, we are fully on board with that and that piece of legislation is in the percolator,” he said.
The issue of cigarette packaging was back in public focus last month after a landmark ruling in Australia upheld Canberra’s tough anti-tobacco marketing laws. According to Reuters, Australia’s highest court endorsed tough new anti-tobacco marketing laws, dismissing a legal challenge from global cigarette companies in a major test case between tobacco giants and anti-smoking campaigners.
Tobacco giants British American Tobacco, Britain’s Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco challenged the laws in Australia’s High Court, claiming the rules were unconstitutional because they effectively extinguished their intellectual property rights. The judges hearing the case did not find that the laws breached the constitution.
The Australia decision means cigarettes and tobacco products must be sold in plain olive green packets without branding from December 1, 2012. The plain packages will also carry graphic health warnings.
