Health

21 November 2010

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11796903

Make cigarette packaging plain, government urges

Summary

Cigarette packets should be less attractive. It should help children not to start smoking and it would help people who want to stop smoking. Packaging is very important for more sales because it could mislead smokers by its looks. Next year shops need to cover up displays of cigarettes already but it might take a while before the packets will be a plain colour. It would be good if this approach will help because the rates of bad health and deaths from smoking is still very high. Not everybody agrees though that plain packaging will help to get the smoking rates down.

Reaction

I think it might be a good idea to give the packets a plain colour and only put information about health risks on them. Covering up displays of cigarettes and plain packaging could prevent children to start smoking but I do not think it will help smokers to stop smoking. It does not matter how that packet looks, if you are addicted then you need something else to help you stop than a change of colour on a packet. I do think that if displays of cigarettes and cigarettes are more out of sight in shops people might buy them less often.