Should all cigarettes have plain packaging?

The Government has agreed in principle to stub out the brightly-coloured branding of cigarette packets - just as tobacco companies' court actions to overturn Australia's plain-packet law are getting under way.

Forcing tobacco into plain packaging is considered a key policy to help break the cycle of new, teenaged smokers becoming addicted.

Unbranded packets have been shown in New Zealand research with young people to lack the cool factor associated with cigarette branding for decades.

Australia's new law will put tobacco into packets of a dull colour dominated by large health warnings and with standardised fonts for the names of the products.

(Published by NZ Herald - April 20, 2012)