Who though it couldn't get worse ....

[tippexx]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/australia-tasmania-smoking-ban-cigarette-sales-big-tobacco

There's a picture on the article to .... what a plain Aussie wrap might look like.

[Dherm]

Stop the world, I want to get off!

[H4rty82]

Does he really think that banning people from buying cigarettes will stop them smoking?

I was smoking in school at the age of 15 (a year long fad that I quickly got out of) now correct me if I'm wrong but technically anyone who is the age of 15 is "banned" from buying cigarettes...

What is the world coming to!

[Wardjrz]

People will collect absolutely anything even gross images on tobacco products.
Changing the packaging in the way suggested will create a market somewhere that will encourage people to buy the tobacco just as much as having pretty packaging.

Do the authorites actually think we buy tobacco because the packaging looks good?

I bought my first cigarette's aged fourteen or so (10 Embassy Number 1 - 22p from a cigarette vending machine in the street) not because I fancied the packaging but because it was illegal, adults told me not to and I wondered what all the fuss was about - if it was that bad why did so many adults smoke.

Plain packaging, gruesome pictures or really attractive packaging wouldn't have changed any of these things.

After not smoking anything for nearly 15 years I went on holiday to Cuba and tried a cigar, again not because I fancied the packaging but because as an adult I was interested in trying something new. I continue to smoke the occaisional cigar because I enjoy the time and space that a cigar gives me in a mad 100mph world.

Changing the packaging will not affect whether I buy cigars or not but then maybe I'm not the target audience for the message.

Hiding what tobacco products are will only increase their appeal - people may buy to see what is so bad that it has to be put in plain packaging.

Cigars are too expensive and too much a luxury product to be affected in this way - I don't understand what it will achieve in the cigar market.

[Dherm]

Very eloquently put John, I totally agree with you.

[Vortigan]

It's almost developing into a pissing contest now,let's see who can be the most hard line on tobacco! They know damn well it won't make a scrap of difference to anything.In fact hiding it,covering it up,putting it behind screens or even banning it altogether is likely only going to serve to make it more interesting to the very target group they're claiming to be looking out for!! Oh it will make one difference of course,the black market will go interstellar!!

Edit - Sorry John,I realised I've just repeated some of what you'd already stated.