Low yield cigarettes 'not a healthier option': $9 million campaign

A $9 million consumer awareness campaign advising smokers that 'light' and 'mild' cigarettes are not a healthier option will be launched nationally on 26 December 2005.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said the consumer awareness campaign, funded by tobacco companies, will inform consumers of health concerns related to use of 'light' and 'mild' and similarly described cigarettes.

The $9 million funding for the campaign was contributed by Philip Morris Limited, British American Tobacco Australia Limited and Imperial Tobacco Australia Limited as part of
court-enforceable undertakings* obtained by the ACCC.

Earlier this year the three tobacco companies agreed to:

• remove the 'light', 'mild' and related descriptors and numbers of concern from their cigarette packaging
• cease making the health representations relating to 'light', 'mild' and related descriptors of concern to the ACCC, and
• contribute $9 million in funding for a consumer education campaign to raise consumer awareness that low yield cigarettes are not necessarily a healthier option.

"The undertakings addressed the matters of most concern to the ACCC and successfully resolved the ACCC's investigation** of health and other claims allegedly made by the tobacco companies in Australia", Mr Samuel said. 

"The campaign, including television, radio, print and billboard advertisements, will air nationally and aims to raise awareness that low yield cigarettes are not necessarily less harmful to a smoker's health than high yield cigarettes".

Background

*Court-enforceable undertakings, under section 87B of the Trade Practices Act 1974, from Philip Morris Limited, British American Tobacco Australia Limited and Imperial Tobacco Australia Limited are available on the ACCC undertakings public register.

**Following a lengthy investigation, the ACCC considered that British American Tobacco Australia Limited, Philip Morris Limited and Imperial Tobacco Australia Limited had represented that low yield cigarettes marketed and packaged as 'light', 'mild', 'medium', 'ultra-light', 'micro' etc and/or brands bearing numbers such as '1', '2', '4' '6', '12', referring to average levels of machine tested tar, nicotine and/or carbon monoxide emitted from cigarettes had certain health benefits in comparison to those marketed as regular or higher yield cigarettes.

In the ACCC's view, the claimed health benefits of low yield cigarettes compared to high yield cigarettes were misleading and likely to breach section 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 in that low yield cigarettes:

• are not necessarily less harmful to the health of a smoker
• are not necessarily a safer alternative
• are not necessarily less addictive
• do not necessarily reduce the risk of smoking-related diseases including lung cancer, cardio vascular diseases and emphysema
• do not necessarily reduce the risk of exacerbating asthma and respiratory disease
• do not necessarily assist a smoker to quit smoking cigarettes
• do not necessarily assist the smoker in reducing the number of cigarettes consumed

when compared to high yield cigarettes.

This was in part due to the ACCC finding that since at least the early 1990s tobacco companies and others have known that certain smoking behaviour (known as smokers' compensation) may deliver to the body higher levels of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide than those levels produced by smoking testing machines, which are the levels stated on the sides of cigarette packaging as information messages. It is these levels which the tobacco companies have marketed and used as brand names such as 'One', '2', '4', '6', '8', and '12'.

Scientific studies indicate that smokers are likely to compensate for such 'light' cigarettes by inhaling more deeply, holding smoke in the lungs for longer, covering manufactured cigarette ventilation holes with the fingers or mouth, or smoking more frequently.

(Low yield cigarettes include cigarettes with a machine tested average tar delivery of 8mgs or less, or have a machine tested average tar delivery in excess of 8mgs and also have the any one of the 'light' or 'mild' descriptors).