To find out what plain packaging of cigarettes will entail, you can read the detail in the Tobacco Plain Packaging Bill 2011, introduced to Parliament today.
(With the tobacco industry fighting hard against this measure, one can only wonder what awaits a proposal in Iceland to make cigarettes available only by prescription.)
The level of detail in the Bill is noteworthy, including:
No part of the retail packaging of tobacco products may make a noise, or contain or produce a scent, that could be taken to constitute tobacco advertising and promotion.
The retail packaging of tobacco products must not include any features designed to change the packaging after retail sale, including (without limitation) the following:
(a) heat activated inks;
(b) inks or embellishments designed to appear gradually over time;
(c) inks that appear fluorescent in certain light;
(d) panels designed to be scratched or rubbed to reveal an image or text;
(e) removable tabs;
(f) fold-out panels.
Section 4, definitions: “onsert means any thing affixed or otherwise attached to packaging (within the ordinary meaning of the word)”
Never mind Plain Packaging, whatever happened to Plain Language? “Onsert”??
I’m sure it wouldn’t be allowed at Scrabble!
It is about time this was done. If the soft headed can’t be persuaded by any other means to give up the evil weed, then a bit of paternalism is required. The tobacco industry know they are fighting a losing battle, they are just trying to minimise their losses. And they need the detail of this legislation being the tricky so and sos they are! If you have nursed smokers as I have, when they are critically ill, you would never smoke again.