In 2012, Australia became the first country to force tobacco companies to remove branding from cigarette packs. Other countries have followed in their footsteps, selling packs in a single color, with the brand name written in standard font size and new health warnings covering 60% of the pack. So far, the UK, Ireland, and France have introduced legislation.
How Effective Is This?
Experts are barely starting to understand the effects of standardized packaging through a number of experiments, surveys, and focus groups. From the little research that’s been done, researchers have found that this type of packaging changes the attitudes and beliefs around smoking. It reduces the cool factor of smoking, and the graphic pictures and health warnings help scare people. But there is no way in telling if the packaging adds to the decline of people smoking. Since the standardized packaging was introduced in Australia, there’s been a 2.2% drop in smoking. It may not seem like a lot, but that’s roughly 18,000 less people smoking a cigarette.
