Better Tobacco Control in UK

Empower & Inspire: Spread Health & Wellness

UK Department of Health has announced certain ideas to reduce the number of people who smoke, like plain cigarette packets with no branding or logos, minimum pack sizes of 20 and a ban on the advertising of cigarette papers.

The new Department of Health consultation document ‘The Future of Tobacco Control’, which coincides with World No Tobacco Day, aims to start a debate around further measures that would stop people smoking and prevent young people starting to smoke.

The ideas and proposals in the consultation include:

* removing branding and logos from all tobacco packaging;

* having a minimum pack size of 20 – to stop young people, who can only afford packs of 10, buying cigarettes;

* restricting access to cigarette vending machines by young people – whether by banning vending machines altogether or through systems that only allow adult purchase;

* restricting the display of tobacco products in shops. which may include putting cigarettes under the counter; and

* banning the advertising of smoking paraphernalia, such as cigarette papers..

The take up of smoking in young people is lower than a decade ago, but over 200,000 of all under 16’s start smoking each year. As a result they are 3 times more likely to die of cancer due to smoking than someone who starts in their mid-20s.

The four main themes laid out in the consultation are:

? protecting children and young people from smoking
? further reducing smoking rates and health inequalities caused by smoking
? helping smokers to quit
? helping those who cannot quit.

A new NHS Smokefree advertising campaign is also revealed for the first time today. It highlights to parents who smoke that children with smoking parents are three times more likely to become smokers than those with parents who are non-smokers.

Source: Department of Health, UK, UK


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