Shropshire smokers will see shake-up in packaging
A generation of smokers have grown up with branding on cigarettes. But anyone picking up a pack of 20 in Shropshire from today could see change to the usual packaging.
Instead, cigarettes are to be sold in standardised green packaging bearing graphic warnings of the dangers of smoking, including gruesome images of lungs clogged with tar.
All packs must contain a minimum of 20 cigarettes to make sure the packs are big enough for health warnings to cover 65 per cent of the front and back, with the brand name restricted to a standard size, font and colour.
The EU Tobacco Products Directive has allowed the UK to go further with its regulations to require all tobacco packaging to be uniformly green with large images showing the harmful effects of smoking.
Packaging of hand-rolled tobacco must also be in the same drab green colour and contain a minimum of 30g of tobacco.
It is the latest change to remove cigarettes from the mainstream, after they were restricted to curtained-off shelves in newsagents and supermarkets.
But Ron Millar, 42, who runs Castle News in Shrewsbury, is dubious about the move.
He said: "I personally think it is the Government trying to cover themselves in the future with claims that they haven't done enough to deter people from smoking.
"The thing is when something is mysterious people are more interested in it. As soon as there is an embargo on it, sales go up. As soon as they put more embargoes on packaging, we sell more.
"It is like telling a kid they can't go into a pub until they are 18, it makes them want to. It won't stop me selling them, if anyone is daft enough to buy cigarettes, I will sell them.
"It is a life choice, and I know a lot feel it is being taken away from them.
"Having packs of 20 as a minimum will probably save me some space, but it might make people smoke more. Some people might have only bought 10 before but now they might smoke more if they can only buy a minimum of 20."
Tobacco giants failed in a last-ditch legal challenge against the Government's new plain packaging rules at the High Court on Thursday when a judge rejected a judicial review action brought against Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt by four of the world's biggest firms.
The companies now have a year to sell old stock and fully implement the changes under the directive, which was adopted in 2014 but has been held up by a series of court cases testing its legality.
The new rules are an attempt to cut the number of smokers across the EU by 2.4 million. An estimated 700,000 premature deaths are caused each year, and cancer charities are backing the measures.
