Tobacco and nicotine regulation
Despite the overwhelming evidence that smoking is harmful to health, the tobacco industry remains largely under-regulated on issues such as product ingredients, labelling and health warnings.
It is now recognised that nicotine addiction is one of the major reasons why people continue to smoke cigarettes, and that cigarettes are in reality extremely effective and closely controlled nicotine delivery devices. Recognition of this central role of nicotine addiction is important because it has major implications for the way that smoking is managed by doctors and other health professionals, and for the way harmful nicotine delivery products such as cigarettes should be regulated and controlled in society.
At present there is no adequate institutional framework to analyse and assess nicotine and tobacco products, regulate the development of the nicotine market or monitor and protect society from the effects of tobacco use.
Call for a Tobacco Regulatory Authority
The National Heart Forum and many of its members have called on the Government to create a Tobacco Regulatory Authority to provide the skilled scientific knowledge and application to effectively regulate tobacco and nicotine in the UK.
An early priority for a regulatory authority is to undertake full, independent assessment of the possible consequences of tobacco industry moves to develop and market smokeless tobacco products such as snuff.
Health warning labels
International studies have shown that health warning labels on cigarette packets are effective in raising awareness of the risks of smoking and in reducing consumption if they are large, prominent and contain hard-hitting and specific factual information. Securing effective warnings on tobacco products has been an important policy objective in recent years.
All cigarette packs sold in he UK are required to include health warnings covering 30% of the front surface and 40% of the back. The European Tobacco Products Directive allows member states to add picture warnings on tobacco products, subject to approval by the European Commission.
The UK government plans to introduce picture warnings during 2007.