Policy options for extending standardized tobacco packaging

Policy options for extending standardized tobacco packaging Janet Hoek & Philip Gendall a University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, Otago, New Zeeland. Correspondence to Janet Hoek (email: [email protected]). (Submitted: 19 December 2016 – Revised version received: 4 July 2017 – Accepted: 5 July 2017 – Published online: 28 August 2017) Smoking is a public health problem that will cause 1 billion deaths in the 21st century, if current smoking patterns persist. 1 Tobacco companies’ aggressive marketing has fostered tobacco use by creating brands and linking these to attributes and identities that users and susceptible non-users value. Although many countries now restrict traditional marketing media, tobacco companies have developed increasingly creative strategies to encourage experimentation with tobacco among non-users and deter quitting among users. Packaging has provided an important and until recently, largely unregulated, conduit for these marketing messages and has communicated appealing imagery to young people while using known and familiar brand symbols to reassure existing tobacco users.