Legal does not mean unaccountable: suing tobacco companies to recover health care costs

MacKenzie, Ross; LeGresley, Eric; Daube, Mike

doi:10.5694/mja17.00310

Topics

It is time for legal action to recover health care costs from the tobacco industry

Australia’s 2011 precedent-setting plain packaging legislation1 reinforced the country’s reputation within the tobacco industry as “the darkest market in the world”.2 The country’s commitment to tobacco control, and a declining national smoking rate that is among the lowest in the world should not, however, mislead the public or policy makers into a mistaken belief that tobacco is done.

1 Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW
2 Ottawa, ON, Canada
3 Curtin University, Perth, WA

Correspondence: ross.mackenzie@mq.edu.au

Acknowledgements:

Ross MacKenzie is supported by the National Cancer Institute, US National Institutes of Health, grant no. R01-CA091021.

Competing interests:

No relevant disclosures.

1. Department of Health. Plain packaging of tobacco products. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2016. http://www.health.gov.au/tobaccopp (accessed June 2017).
2. Imperial Brands. Investor day. Transcript — quality growth: returns and growth — markets that matter. Imperial Brands, 2016. http://www.imperialbrandsplc.com/content/dam/imperial-brands/corporate/investors/presentations/investor-day/2016/Transcript%204%20-%20Markets%20that%20Matter.pdf.downloadasset.pdf (accessed June 2017).
3. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Risk factors to health. Tobacco smoking. Canberra: AIHW, 2017. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/biomedical-risk-factors/risk-factors-to-health/contents/tobacco-smoking (accessed June 2017).
4. Banks E, Joshy G, Weber MF, et al. Tobacco smoking and all-cause mortality in a large Australian cohort study: findings from a mature epidemic with current low smoking prevalence. BMC Medicine 2015; 13: 38.
5. Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey: first results, 2014–15 [website]. Smoking (Cat. No. 4364.0.55.001). Canberra: ABS, 2016. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4364.0.55.001∼2014-15∼Main%20Features∼Smoking∼24 (accessed June 2017).
6. Collins DJ, Lapsley HM. The costs of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug abuse to Australian society in 2004/05. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2008. https://www.health.gov.au/internet/drugstrategy/publishing.nsf/Content/34F55AF632F67B70CA2573F60005D42B/$File/mono64.pdf (accessed Sept 2017).
7. Australian Senate. Official Committee Hansard. Community Affairs Legislation Committee: estimates; 19 October, 2016 (p 124). Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia; 2016. http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/4650dd36-4d76-41ee-8c11-5e0e508d3cb6/toc_pdf/Community%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2016_10_19_4519_Official.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/4650dd36-4d76-41ee-8c11-5e0e508d3cb6/0002%22 (accessed June 2017).
8. Bonevski B, Borland R, Paul CL, et al, No smoker left behind: it’s time to tackle tobacco in Australian priority populations. Med J Aust 2017; 207: 141-142. <MJA full text>
9. Freeman B. Challenging how tobacco is sold in Australia. Med J Aust 2017; 207: 417-418.e1.
10. Davey M. Tobacco industry “should be sued by government” over smokers’ health costs. The Guardian 2015; 25 February. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/25/tobacco-industry-should-be-sued-by-government-over-smokers-health-costs (accessed June 2017).
11. Public Health Law Center, Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Tobacco control litigation. Public Health Law Center, 2017. http://publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/tobacco-control/tobacco-control-litigation (accessed June 2017).
12. Kalra A, Bansal P, Wilson D, Lasseter T. Exclusive: documents reveal Philip Morris’ campaign to subvert the world’s anti-smoking treaty. Reuters 2017, 13 July. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pmi-who-fctc-tobacco-exclusive-idUSKBN19Y1DN (accessed July 2017).
13. Glenza J. Tobacco companies interfere with health regulations, WHO reports. The Guardian 2017, 19 July. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/19/tobacco-industry-government-policy-interference-regulations (accessed July 2017).
14. Attorney-General’s Department. Tobacco plain packaging — investor-state arbitration [website]. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2012. https://www.ag.gov.au/tobaccoplainpackaging (accessed June 2017).
15. World Health Organization, Tobacco Free Initiative. International tribunal upholds states’ rights to protect health through tobacco control. Geneva: WHO, 2016. http://www.who.int/tobacco/communications/news/international-legal-tribunal-states-right-to-protect-health/en (accessed June 2017).
16. Reuters. Tobacco industry suffers defeat as WTO upholds Australia’s plain packaging laws. The Guardian 2017, 5 May. https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/may/05/australias-defeats-wto-challenge-to-plain-packaging-of-tobacco (accessed July 2017).
17. World Health Organization. WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Geneva: WHO, 2005. http://www.who.int/fctc/en (accessed June 2017).
18. British Columbia. Tobacco litigation. http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/keeping-bc-healthy-safe/tobacco-vapour/tobacco-litigation (accessed July 2017).
19. University of California, San Francisco Library. Truth Tobacco Industry Documents. 2017. https://industrydocuments.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco (accessed June 2017).
20. Shanahan L. Roxon sizes up lawsuit against Big Tobacco companies. The Australian 2011, 14 December. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/health/roxon-sizes-up-lawsuit-against-big-tobacco-companies/news-story/41d20e27a3b5d68319b7843031c06d88 (accessed Sept 2017).
21. Department of Finance. Budget 2016–2017 [website]. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2017. http://budget.gov.au/2016-17/content/glossies/tax_super/html/tax_super-05.htm (accessed June 2017).
22. Turnbull M, MP. Small Business Breakfast with Steve Irons MP. 15 June 2016. https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/small-business-breakfast-with-steve-irons-mp (accessed June 2017).

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.