Australia's Cigarette Packaging Law

We smoke Parliament lights... except here, they've changed it so it doesn't say 'lights', because they don't want people thinking that a 'light' cigarette is a safer cigarette. So now we have to ask for a Parliament blue pack... BECAUSE KIDS WOULDN'T WANT SOMETHING 'BLUE' BEFORE SOMETHING 'LIGHT'... doesn't make sense to me, I don't like it. They've plastered warning about 'no safe cigarette' all over every pack, carton, and advertisement... so why change the labeling to something as remedial as colors?! I'm a smoker (well, trying to quit), doesn't mean I want my kids smoking... The color packaging is ridiculous.

ETA, I know what smoking does. I also know that every cigarette NOT smoked is what counts. I'm working on it ;)

So funny that the governments pretend to care when they really don't. They make tons of money off cancer sticks. If they really cared they'd ban smoking right along with bars. I mean drinking then driving is illegal, but there are bars for goodness sake. They expect a person with a drinking problem to "know when to say when"? They expect a drunk person to be responsible enough to call a cab? They will put these grisly images on cigarette packages, but not on abortion pamphlets or billboards. I am not for smoking, but if a woman has the right to choose without being subjected to disgusting images of death then why do people who smoke have to see it?

Oh and I really don't think it's going to work. People are ADDICTED to smoking. New smokers either don't care or don't believe that they may become addicted or they start so young they don't have the maturity to consider the long term consequences. Plus, if you see something enough, you'll probably get numb to it.

I think smoking is probably THE worst thing you could possibly do, besides drugs and driving while drunk. I would approve of anything and any means available to discourage smoking.

A friend of mine brought home an empty box of Australian cigarettes to show me the warnings they had on them (this was like 15 years ago) and very plainly in large friendly letters they said "Smoking kills" and went to list cancer, emphysema and a whole list of other ills as well as dangers of 2nd hand smoke.
None of this namby-pamby 'smoking may be hazardous to your health' messages we've had in the US for so many years.
Those already addicted will continue to pick their favorite poison (nicotine is a very effective insecticide) no matter what the label says or shows.
If making packaging pretty attracts buyers (and it does for many products to a certain extent), then it stands to reason that taking pretty away will help take a little of that attraction away.

I could find my marlboro lights blind folded in the dark!

They ought to double the tax on cigarettes and continue to plaster pictures of old ladies with holes in their throats on every smoking advertisement/ package that they can. There is a huge cost to society when people smoke - and not just second-hand smoke! Smokers are absent from work more often (because their immune systems are suppressed, allowing them to become sicker more frequently than their non-smoking counterparts), and when they are at work, they take frequent breaks to go smoke, so that drives productivity down. They incur higher health-care costs, which causes the cost of health care to go up for non-smokers as well. Unfortunately in the US, the nicotine lobby is so powerful and our elected officials are so on-the-take that our anti-smoking policies are fairly ineffective. But think about this: addicted or not, if the cost went up and up and up, people would quit smoking. They would. Look at what happens when gas prices go over $4 - people choose to drive less. Or when energy costs go way up - people use less power. Money does drive our behavior, and cost IS a factor in what people choose to do.

So yeah, advertise the heck out of the health effects of smoking, and tax it like crazy. The day nobody smokes anymore will be a great day for all of us. Seeing good people die of lung cancer is absolutely tragic and absolutely avoidable.

I think it's a compelling strategy. If it prevents a child or young person from trying smoking for the first time, I say GREAT

Yeah but how much do they COST?!

:/

I don't think it will make any difference to those who smoke.
A friend just came back from Peru and said they have those there and smoking was less prevalent than here.

In the Uk, tobacco advertising has been banned for years, tv, billboards, everything. There is no advertising. fags are about $8 for a packet.
They have huge pictures of black lungs and SMOKING KILLS in huge letters all over them.
The thing is though is that the government makes so much off the taxes they won't outright ban them, even though it is way more addictive than other banned drugs!

Cupcake - we tried making alcohol illegal - the 18th amendment to the Constitution established Prohibition which was a dismal failure - crime rates soared as did government corruption and drinking continued underground - in fact drinking among women increased dramatically since they did go to speak easies but had never gone to legal pubs. The 'war on drugs' has also been a dismal failure (recent report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, plus common sense). So while I would LOVE to see cigarettes vanish forever I would simply recommend taxing the hell out of them, making the packaging as unattractive as possible and attempting to regulate and educate underage smoking/smokers. I would suggest the same approach for (currently) illegal drugs - legalize and tax, tax, tax.

I think we would be wise to be more concerned over the dangerous chemicals and additives companies are free to put inside the cigarettes than we are about the packaging around them.