What was I saying about early evidence?

Here's a rule of thumb:  any reporter who uses "nanny state" in his writing deserves to be a blogger, not a serious journalist; and chances are they're aligned with libertarianism and/or the IPA.

Christian Kerr falls into that category with his report today under the shock! horror! headline "Labor's plain packaging fails as cigarette sales rise."  Apparently, industry figures (gee, no room for manipulation there, I guess, Christian?)  indicate a .3 percent rise in tobacco sales in the first full year of plain packaging.

0.3!   A catastrophe.

Libertarian types, of course, might be rather loathe to consider a few factors here:

a.   industry manipulation of their sales or sales figures.  No, this industry has always been scrupulously honest, hey?

b.   (I don't know if this is possible, I would have to check, but then I'm sure Kerr hasn't) stockpiling of cigarettes to avoid price rises;

c.   even, possibly, a genuine smoker led rebellion against "nanny statism", but one which is so small that the true way plain packaging was expected to work will not be deterred for long.

I always understood that the point of plain packaging was mainly to deter teenagers from starting.  I would not dismiss the possibility that, for a very, very small number of dumb teenagers (being inspired by parents in the IPA, probably), might take up smoking so as laugh in the face of "nanny statism".    But for every one of them, how many teenage girls will be subtly put off by the ugly packaging?

Time will tell, but it was never reasonable to expect that huge numbers of smokers would immediately be butting out because of this change.

As for the Australian - I don't remember looking up before whether Rupert was a smoker, but I see he certainly has had tobacco connections in the past:

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch joined the Board of Directors of Philip Morris in August 1989 and he continued to serve on their board into the 1990s. [1][2] The relationship appeared to serve PM well. A 1985 PM internal report shows that information that could negatively affect the tobacco industry was routinely withheld from Murdoch-owned newspapers worldwide:

As regards the media, we plan to build similar relationships to those we now have with Murdoch's News Limited with other newspaper proprietors. Murdoch's papers rarely publish anti-smoking articles these days. To sum up, then, on using our natural allies. We have made a start; we have proved that it can be done; we have found that they can be a very effective force; and we intend to do more in the future.

Update:  Stephen Koukoulas says some Bureau of Stats figures paint a completely different picture of substantial dropping consumption.  There may be nothing to explain at all, apart from tobacco company spin, and The Australian's shameful shilling for them.

Update 2:   of course, I knew Sinclair Davidson would be gobbling up this tobacco company promoted news without the slightest hint of skepticism, just like an ex smoker from a think tank with known past, if not current, ties to the tobacco industry, would.   In fact, as a long time reader of Catallaxy, my expectation from the various self disclosures there is that something approaching 95% of its thread participants are ex or current smokers.    The evidence from there suggests smoking is more harmful to cognition than people recognise.  

And another thought - if (as someone suggests in that thread) the figures are right, and explained by smokers moving to cheaper brands and therefore smoking slightly more - a .3% on average increase in smoking by existing smokers is not going to matter one pinch in the public health issue. 

What is much more important is the effect on total number of smokers - particularly new, young smokers taking it up.   And that could only be answered by survey information, over time.

Is that so hard for an economist to work out?

Update 3:  in a pretty desperate attempt to save his argument in light of the Koukoulas cited ABS figures, I see that SD has gone to the monthly quarterly figures to declare that plain packaging still led to higher consumption, and arguing that consumption only dropped off after the excise increase.

Seems to me this doesn't rebut my stockpiling possible explanation, and how with any certainly can you say the excise increase must be the sole reason for the drop off?

But let's not let considering all possible factors get in the way of simplistic story fed to us by tobacco companies, hey?  

Update 4:  don't believe me, just read The Guardian.