Brazen CRUK targets cigarettes

It's not enough, apparently, to have graphic health warnings and 'plain' packaging on tobacco products.

A study published yesterday by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) advocates that a health warning ('Smoking kills') should be printed on the side of every cigarette.

Moreover manufacturers should be forced to change the colour of the traditional cigarette from white to an "unappealing" green.

This, we are told, will discourage more smokers to quit and will also discourage teenagers from smoking.

It's rubbish, of course. Similar studies were produced to support plain packaging yet there is still nothing to suggest the policy has helped reduce smoking rates anywhere it's been introduced.

Likewise graphic health warnings that were ignored almost as soon as they appeared.

Ignoring the failure of these policies, anti-smoking campaigners now want to target the humble cigarette.

It's not a new idea and I'm certain it won't go away which makes the complacency that greeted the announcement of the UK government's tobacco control plan in July all the more baffling.

Apparently we can all relax because the current government shows little sign of wanting to legislate further on tobacco.

Well, I've been here before – several times – and I can tell you that the tobacco control industry is relentless and never stops lobbying or bullying politicians (ministers included) to bend to their will.

I'll address this issue properly in the new year. In the meantime, here's Forest's response to CRUK's latest initiative:

Campaigners have dismissed a call for a health warning to be printed on the side of each cigarette to deter people from smoking.

Responding to a new study by Cancer Research UK that argues that making the cigarette itself unappealing could reduce smoking rates, Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said:

“We were told that graphic health warnings and plain packaging would make cigarettes less desirable but there’s no evidence that either policy actually works.

“Printing a warning on the cigarette or changing the colour of the stick will achieve nothing other than highlight the failure of existing policies.

“Clumsy and heavy-handed state interventions that rely on scaremongering invariably fail because the health risks of smoking are already well known to teenagers as well as adults.

“If the government wants fewer people to smoke the solution is not to impose more regulations on cigarettes but to encourage existing smokers to switch voluntarily to products like e-cigarettes that provide a safer yet pleasurable alternative.

“Smokers need a carrot not a stick with yet another warning they will almost certainly ignore.”

To date we've been quoted by The Times, Herald, Independent, London Evening Standard and the National (Scotland).