Tobacco industry to be restricted by new laws in the UK and EU
New regulations on the tobacco industry came into force in the United Kingdom, going further than what an EU directive required.
The Tobacco Products Directive was revised by the EU a year ago, imposing new restrictions on tobacco products in order to deter smoking, especially among youngsters. The restrictions include the banning of flavored cigarettes and the addition of larger warnings and graphic photos of some of the health risks. The EU claims evidence that pictorial warnings have contributed to the reduction of smoking rates in Canada and Brazil.
New rules regulating the amount of nicotine that e-cigarettes may contain have also appeared. Furthermore, there will be new packaging and labeling rules for e-cigarettes. All of the regulations were set to go into effect Saturday, one year after they passed, to give businesses time to clear out old stock, according to NPR.
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The U.K. has decided to go a step further than the EU in regulating tobacco products. This way, all cigarettes in the U.K. must be sold in green packaging with graphic warning labels and the brand name printed in a standard typeface. The rules will also ban the selling of “half packs” of 10 cigarettes, setting a minimum of 20.
Charities fighting against cancer and other diseases linked to smoking happily welcomed the new rules. The British Lung Foundation tweeted, “Every person discouraged from smoking could be a life saved. Standardized packaging is a positive step. Now we need a tobacco control plan.”
Some critics consider the new restrictions “infantalizing.” Simon Clark, director of the smoker’s rights group Forest, released a statement this week, in which he claims the rules are counter-productive. “The idea that people smoke because of the packaging is absurd. There’s no evidence that plain packaging has any impact on youth smoking rates,” he said.
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