The RCP believes that in order to protect the long-term health of the nation from the effects of tobacco, more needs to be done. Key measures include protecting children from passive smoking, implementing plain packaging to lessen the appeal of tobacco products and developing safer cigarette substitutes to reduce the harm for existing smokers.
Smoking caused an estimated 81,400 deaths in 2009. While legislation to ban tobacco advertising and smoking in public places, amongst other measures, has been linked to an overall fall in the prevalence of smoking, the RCP believes that more needs to be done to protect the nation's long-term health from the effects of tobacco. This includes:
- Protecting children from passive smoking - Although passive exposure to smoke has fallen in recent years, in particular in public places, it continues to cause substantial morbidity and mortality in children, as well as increasing the risk that the child will take up smoking. The RCP believes that the most effective way to prevent exposure of children is to continue to drive down the prevalence of smoking in adults, and to highlight the need to protect children from smoke in the home, in cars and elsewhere.
- Plain packaging for tobacco products- Since the banning of tobacco advertising and promotion, brightly coloured and branded packaging is one of the few remaining ways of differentiating tobacco products and making them attractive to young people.The RCP believes that requiring plain generic packaging would remove the glamour and lessen the appeal of smoking. Although included in the 2009 Health Bill, this measure has not yet been carried through and remains crucial to removing the last vestiges of promotion of cigarettes to young people.
- Better nicotine regulation to reduce harm - Current conventional preventive measures focus entirely on preventing uptake of smoking and helping smokers to quit, but this will not work for the millions who find this difficult or impossible.We can reduce the harm for smokers with effective cigarette substitutes, yet medicinal nicotine is tightly regulated, which hampers the development of new products.The RCP believes there is a need to reform nicotine product regulation and develop new, more effective, more acceptable and safer cigarette substitutes.
