Down Under Nicotine News
Philip Morris loses a legal case and public health slams vaping again.
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by Dave Cross
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In 2012, Australia embarked on the process to force tobacco companies to use unappealing packaging with graphic pictures of tobacco-related diseases. Big Tobacco wasn’t taking this lying down in 2015 and Philip Morris decided it could take an entire nation to court.
The company’s case was thrown out and was ordered to pay the legal costs incurred by the country. While the final figure has been redacted from the decision announced by the international Permanent Court of Arbitration, multiple sources including the Sydney Morning Herald report that it is in the region of £30 million.
"The Tribunal does not consider that any of these costs claimed by the respondent were unreasonable and should not have been incurred," the court found. "In making this assessment, the tribunal also takes into consideration the significant stakes involved in this dispute in respect of Australia's economic, legal and political framework, and in particular the relevance of the outcome in respect of Australia's policies in matters of public health."
Public health experts, with apparent scant regard for the health of the smoking public, were quick to see a bandwagon to jump on.
The Daily Advertiser serves the residents of Wagga Wagga, and proudly claims to be a vessel for free speaking and (therefore) liberty. Its belief in freedom quickly grinds to a halt when nicotine is mentioned. Instead, it announces: “Wagga public health workers raise concerns about safety of 'vaping'.”
A quick scan of the piece reveals there is only one public health official, Murrumbidgee Local Health District's Ian Hardinge. The journalist did manage to find Wagga mayor Greg “While the jury’s out, I’ll be against it” Conkey and dig up an old quote from the obsolete Simon Chapman.
“In an opinion piece for Fairfax Media,” the Fairfax Media writes, “public health expert [their words] Simon Chapman from the University of Sydney [he isn’t, he’s retired] said the ‘95 per cent safer’ claims were ‘nothing more than guesswork [it’s not] by a small hand-picked group, convened with the support of a Swiss-based agency with ties to the tobacco industry’ [that’s a lie].”
Australian vapers and harm-reduction advocates don’t simply have to fight idiots like Chapman – they need to win over the media in order to further the cause. It’s going to be a long battle, because the experts and the journalists seem to be out of step with the readers if the survey is anything to go by.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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