The UK's government is likely to introduce a plain-packing law for cigarettes, according to reports.
The issue has been debated among members of the nation's parliament for about two years.
Plain cigarette-packaging entails a homogenous design for all packets of all brands, and requires the absence of logos and corporate graphics of any kind. Rather, health warnings, both visual and and verbal, dominate the vista of the packaging.
Brand names are printed on the packets, but with text of uniform font and size. They cannot be embellished in any way.
Cancer Research UK was pleased by the move, and the majority of each of the major parties in Britain has backed it: Conservative, 75 per cent; Labour, 75 per cent; Liberal Democrat, 80 per cent; UKIP, 64 per cent.
If the legislation is passed, as seems inevitable, the UK will follow the example of Australia, which introduced a very similar law in 2012.
Ann McKechin, a Labour MP, was quoted as saying in the Guardian, the prominent UK broadsheet newspaper, "In Australia, where plain packaging legislation was introduced in 2012 and generic packaging before that, smoking rates have fallen dramatically. Daily smoking levels are at a historic low of 12.8 per cent, and the average number of cigarettes smoked is now just 96 per week compared to 111 in 2010."
© 2014 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article written by Peter Donnelly
