No evidence plain packaging will lessen cigarette appeal, says think tank

There is no evidence that Government proposals to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes will lessen their appeal, a think tank says.

The Adam Smith Institute released a report arguing that the plans will do nothing for public health and are “profoundly illiberal”.

The Government is to launch a public consultation on putting cigarettes in plain packaging so that all tobacco products look alike.

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But the Institute, which describes itself as the UK’s leading libertarian think tank, warned the policy would set a dangerous precedent as plain packaging could then be extended to other products such as alcohol and fatty foods.

It said there was no evidence that plain packaging would have any effect on existing smokers or the smoking rate, and none that it would prevent non-smokers from taking up smoking as it claimed there is no evidence that the colour and logos on a pack of cigarettes is an influencing factor on people choosing to take up the habit.

It also argued that in order to introduce plain packaging the Government would need to breach international trade rules and confiscate tobacco companies’ intellectual property.

It said that plain packaging would encourage the illicit trade of counterfeit cigarettes, with one in nine cigarettes around the world already fake. Counterfeit cigarettes often have two to three times the level of heavy metals found in legitimate brands, it argued, and the policy would be likely to boost the black market in the UK by offering cheaper cigarettes more likely to lure young and new customers.

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The author of the report, Plain Packaging: Commercial expression, anti-smoking extremism and the risks of hyper-regulation, Christopher Snowdon, said: “It is extraordinary that a Government which claims to be against excessive regulation should be contemplating a law which even the provisional wing of the anti-smoking lobby considered unthinkable until very recently.”

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said of the report: “Why would the tobacco industry and its allies be so vehemently opposed to plain packaging if they weren’t so frightened that plain packaging would work?”

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