Cigarette Companies Are Fighting A Losing Battle

The government announced last night that it plans to make it the law that all individual brands of cigarettes must be sold in the same, uniform packaging.

The new legislation is designed specifically to discourage younger people from taking up the habit in the first place, and would prevent companies from putting logos, graphics or imagery onto their products’ packaging. Research indicates that people are naturally drawn to attractive branding, and experts forecast that the number of first-time smokers should come down in the wake of the law being implemented, which could happen as early as April this year. Health statistics in Australia, where this law was put in place in 2012, support this argument.

The discussion now is over what this new packaging will look like, and how effective it will prove in reducing the number of new smokers in the coming months. The government have released this concept image, which shows a plain, brown carton with a space for a brand and variant name. The packages will also, of course, feature the mandatory health warnings that we’ve seen on cigarette cartons since 2003.

*Image from The Department Of Health