“A victory for public health”

WARRINGTON Borough Council has welcomed “a victory for public health” as standardised (plain) tobacco packaging regulations come into force.
All cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco made for sale will now have to be sold in drab green packaging with dramatic visual health warnings.
The announcement comes following the defeat of the tobacco industry’s High Court Challenge to the regulations on standardised packaging.
Cllr Maureen McLaughlin (pictured) , the council’s lead member for public health and well-being said: “This is excellent news and will help protect the next generation of children and young people from starting to smoke.
“This will see an end to the bright, glamorous packets which attract children in particular to this deadly addiction which claims almost 100,000 lives in the UK every year.”
In the North West, four out of five children who try smoking do so before they are 14 and around 18,000 children start to smoke each year.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, Action on Smoking and Health, said: “Standardised packaging has already reduced smoking rates in Australia. With this measure, we too can look forward to the inevitable reduced appeal of smoking to children which will help save thousands of lives.”
The new packs are required under the Standardised Packaging Regulations, secondary legislation under the Children and Families Act 2014. There will be a one-year transitional period to allow for the sell-through of old stock, so from May next year all tobacco products on sale in the UK will comply with the regulations.