Health News
Plain truth for Australia's smokers
Nov 21, 2011, 4:31 GMT
Sydney - Cigarettes will come in plain green packets from December 2012 under anti-smoking legislation that took effect Monday in Australia.
Brand imagery will be banished under a world-first initiative that removes the last public display of advertising for cigarettes.
Branding will be in small writing underneath large and stark warnings of the damaging effects of smoking.
Smoking, which is said to kill 15,000 Australians a year, has been under attack in Australia for almost 100 years.
High taxes, advertising bans and restricted sales have reduced smoking rates to among the lowest in the world. Around 16 per cent of men and 14 per cent of women are regular smokers compared with 40 per cent and 32 per cent respectively in 1983.
Tobacco companies have promised legal action against what they say is an infringement of international trademark and intellectual property rights.
The government said it was confident any legal challenge to the initiative would fail.
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