September 2012
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Imperial Tobacco criticised for pre-empting packaging laws
On the 1st December 2012, plain packaging will be introduced in Australia. Cigarettes will be required to be sold in olive green packaging with large pictorial health warnings and brand names appearing in standardised font. Ahead of the legislation, Imperial Tobacco has changed the packaging of their Peter Stuyvesant brand to show a ripped branded pack exposing plain packaging underneath with the accompanying slogan “it’s what on the inside that counts”.
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500,000 against plain packaging? The figures just don’t add up.
Plain packaging for cigarettes would require cigarettes to be sold in packets of a standard colour and shape with brand names written in a standardised font and pictorial health warnings covering a substantial proportion of the packet. The public consultation on plain packaging in the UK came to a close on the 10th August 2012. A few days later the Tobacco Manufacturer’s Association (TMA) publicised that ‘half a million oppose plain packaging .’ There are three significant issues with this figure: