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Subject: Singapore's plan on "Standardized packaging" of tobacco products
To: HPB_Mailbox@hpb.gov.sg
Health Promotion Board
3 Second Hospital Avenue,
Singapore 168937
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have read your campaign to control tobacco use and
promote good health among Singapore citizens, it is a good objective. But I
notice that you also plan to introduce or legislate “standardized packaging” or
“plain packaging” in tobacco products, and I think it can adversely affect
Singapore’s good image on protecting intellectual property rights (IPR).
It is true that smoking is dangerous to one's health. I
myself am not a smoker, never smoked a single stick in my whole life, never
worked for the tobacco industry or its allied industries. But I think people
have a choice for their body. They recognize the danger of smoking -- and
drinking, drugs, over-eating, sedentary lifestyle, etc. -- and still they do
it. They compare the health risks with the pleasure of those actions then they
decide whether to continue doing it or not; if they continue, whether to smoke
1 or 20 sticks a day, drink 1 or 10 bottles of beer a day, etc.
Plain packaging (PP) is wrong for the following reasons.
1. Singapore is known for its clear and strong property
rights protection, both physical and intellectual property. Abolition or
significant reduction of the trademarks and corporate logo of tobacco companies
via PP will dent this image and put Singapore’s adherence to IPR protection in
a question mark.
2. If Singapore is to be consistent in its policy, then
it will be pressured in the near future to also introduce PP for alcohol
products like beer and whiskey, soda, chocolate bars, other high sugar, high fat
content meals and snacks.
3. People who derive pleasure in smoking will continue to
smoke despite PP and they will likely shift to cheaper and illicit products.
Overall smoking incidence can either flatline or even increase because tobacco
companies will produce cheaper but cool-tasting products, which will attract new
smokers or entice the few-sticks-a-day
smokers to become one pack a day smokers. PP will only adversely affect the
sale of known and premium products of the big multinational tobacco companies but not the cheap products of
lesser known companies.
4. If drawn in a graph, the supply curve of cheap
cigarettes will move to the right as manufacturers of premium brands will soon
produce lots of plain pack but cheap cigarettes. Equilibrium price goes down
while equilibrium quantity goes up, even if the demand curve does not move.
Discouraging the people from smoking can be done via more
public education. The graphic health warnings, campaigns by the Ministry of Health and health NGOs or groups
are part of such public education.
But some people will continue to smoke – and over-drink, over-eat, over-sit
in sedentary lifestyle – despite
learning more and new things about the
dangers of smoking, over-drinking, and so on. Government cannot micro-manage
the lives of people all the time. What
Singapore should continue protecting is its image as the bastion of IPR protection, whether companies are in IT, pharma, healthcare, hotels, food, alcohol or tobacco.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Bienvenido Oplas, Jr.
President, Minimal Government Thinkers
Manila, Philippines
See also:
IPR and Innovation 29, Civil society enforcement of patents, copyrights, January 18, 2016
IPR and Innovation 30, Patents and pharma issues in Asia in 2007, February 07, 2016
IPR and Innovation 31, On TPP, medicines patent and tobacco trademark, February 29, 2016
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