Plain cigarette packaging rules in force after court ruling

New laws that will require all cigarette brands to adopt uniform plain packaging dominated by images of the ill-effects of smoking came into force today, after the government won a High Court ruling yesterday.

Companies will have one year to sell off their existing stock and fully comply with the new regime. After that, all packets will be required to be the same olive green and devoid of branding. Stark images of smoking-related diseases and health warnings will be expected to take up 65 per cent of the surface area.

In addition, smaller packets containing fewer than ten cigarettes or less than 30g of hand-rolling tobacco will be banned. Also prohibited are healthy-sounding phrases such as "this product is free of additives" or "is less harmful than other brands", notes Sky News.

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On Thursday, the High Court dismissed a legal challenge against the new law brought by Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International, the BBC reports.

Mr Justice Green said: "The essence of the case is about whether it is lawful for states to prevent the tobacco industry from continuing to make profits by using their trade-marks and other rights to further what the World Health Organisation describes as a health crisis of epidemic proportions and which imposes an immense clean-up cost on the public purse.

"In my judgment the regulations are valid and lawful in all respects."

Two of the tobacco companies, Japan Tobacco International and British American Tobacco, have already stated that they will appeal against the ruling. This does not prevent the government from going ahead with implementing the rules in the meantime.

Plain packaging rules were first introduced in Australia in 2012, where legal challenges similarly had to be overcome. Authorities there have claimed the rules have helped to reduce smoking rates, although this is challenged by campaigners.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Allister Heath says that smoking rates were already in a long-term decline of between 0.4 to 0.9 per cent per year – and that the changes did nothing to speed that up. City AM uses a chart to claim that a far bigger effect on smoking rates was actually the result on an increase in taxes in 2013.

Critics of the ban say that, worse, the ban on branding does far more damage by eroding the property rights of companies.

Heath says: "Wherever we look, capitalism, free choice and free markets are in retreat, and state control, regulation, central direction and nannyism are on the rise.

"The problem with treating adults like children is that they eventually start behaving immaturely. Yet unless we all act like adults, accepting individual responsibility for our actions and the principle of caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – in our choices, a free and prosperous society becomes impossible. Instead, we end up with a decaying and stagnant bureaucracy."