LONDON: The introduction of plain packaging for tobacco cigarettes sold in Britain from next month could cut the number of smokers in the country by another 300,000 within a year, researchers said on Thursday.
Based on observational evidence and a review of more than 50 experimental studies on the potential impact of plain packs, experts from the Cochrane Review said they appear to diminish the appeal of tobacco and help reduce smoking prevalence.
Australia was the first country in the world to implement standardized packaging of tobacco products, in December 2012, and data collected since then suggest the new measure led to an extra 0.5 percent a year decline in the number of smokers there.
British legislation on plain packaging for tobacco comes into full effect from May 2017. Plain or standardised packs must be a uniform color, have no logos apart from health warnings and other government-mandated information, and use a prescribed uniform font, color and size for the brand name.
“We are not able to say for sure what the impact would be in the UK, but if the same magnitude of decrease was seen.. as was observed in Australia, this would translate to roughly 300,000 fewer (UK) smokers,” said Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, a researcher at the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group in Oxford.
According to the World Health Organization, tobacco kills more people worldwide than any other preventable cause of death.
The introduction of plain packaging is recommended under the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
The Cochrane team analyzed 51 studies and sought to analyze and summarise their findings. This was hampered by the fact that many of the studies differed in the way they were done and also what they measured, and the fact that so far, only one country had implemented standardised packaging.
“Our evidence suggests standardised packaging can change attitudes and beliefs about smoking, and the evidence we have so far suggests that standardised packaging may reduce smoking prevalence and increase quit attempts,” Hartmann-Boyce said.
UK plain cigarette pack law seen cutting number of smokers by 300,000
UK plain cigarette pack law seen cutting number of smokers by 300,000
Bondi Beach shooting suspect conducted firearms training with his father, Australian police say
MELBOURNE, Australia: A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach conducted firearms training in an area of New South Wales state outside of Sydney with his father, according to Australian police documents released on Monday.
The documents, made public following Naveed Akram’s video court appearance from a Sydney hospital where he has been treated for an abdominal injury, said the two men recorded footage justifying the meticulously planned attack.
Officers wounded Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.
The state government confirmed Naveed Akram was transferred Monday from a hospital to a prison. Authorities identified neither facility.
The 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating an annual Jewish event at Bondi Beach, but the devices failed to explode, the documents said.
Police described the devices as three aluminum pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing an explosive, gunpowder and steel ball bearings. None detonated, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.
The pair had rented a room in the Sydney suburb of Campsie for three weeks before they left at 2:16 a.m. on the day of the attack. CCTV recorded them carrying what police allege were two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs and two homemade Daesh group flags wrapped in blankets.
Police also released images of the gunmen shooting from a footbridge, providing them with an elevated vantage point and the protection of waist-high concrete walls.
The largest IED was found after the gunbattle near the footbridge in the trunk of the son’s car, which had been left draped with the flags.
Authorities have charged Akram with 59 offenses, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.
The antisemitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia’s worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996.
The New South Wales government introduced draft laws to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.
The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a firearms license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four guns.
Police said a video found on Naveed Akram’s phone shows him with his father expressing “their political and religious views and appear to summarise their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.”
The men are seen in the video “condemning the acts of Zionists” while they also “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State,” police said, using another term for the Daesh Group.
Video shot in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on grassland surrounded by trees, police said.
“There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months,” police allege.
An impromptu memorial that grew near the Bondi Pavilion after the massacre, as thousands of mourners brought flowers and heartfelt cards, was removed Monday as the beachfront returned to more normal activity. The Sydney Jewish Museum will preserve part of the memorial.
Victims’ funerals continued Monday with French national Dan Elkayam’s service held in the nearby suburb of Woollahra, at the heart of Sydney’s Jewish life. The 27-year-old moved from Paris to Sydney a year ago.
The health department said 12 people wounded in the attack remained in hospitals on Monday.
