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Policy institute doubts benefits of plain cigarette packs
February 20, 2012
Health charities have attacked a new report from the Adam Smith Institute, which claims that bringing in plain packaging for cigarettes would have no effect on smoking rates and public health.
A UK policy institute has questioned the efficacy of introducing plain packaging for cigarette products and claims it would be 'profoundly illiberal'.
The Adam Smith Institute has published a report that claims the measure - which is currently under consideration by the UK government - would have no benefits for public health and would not help to reduce smoking rates.
Report author Christopher Snowdon told the Press Association: "It is extraordinary that a government which claims to be against excessive regulation should be contemplating a law which even the provisional wing of the anti-smoking lobby considered unthinkable until very recently.
"Plain packaging is the most absurd, patronising and counter-productive policy yet advanced under the disingenuous pretext of 'public health'."
But campaign group Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) said the report's claims "misrepresent the truth" and pointed out that the Adam Smith Institute has repeatedly taken a pro-tobacco line.
Chief executive Deborah Arnott observed: "Why would the tobacco industry and its allies be so vehemently opposed to plain packaging if they weren't so frightened that plain packaging would work?"
Cancer Research UK's director of tobacco control, Sarah Woolnough, also slammed the claims.
She explained: "The policy is not intended to reduce the smoking rate today. It's about stopping the next generation from taking up smoking. It will give millions of children one less reason to start."
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