In 2016, you will no longer see a mark on cigarette packages. Indeed, they will be neutral and covered with warning messages and shocking images.
“This draft neutral package will be included in the health law that I am presenting to the Council of Ministers in a few days”, explained Marisol Touraine. “We will, in accordance with the rule, inform the European Union of our intention,” she said.
An already proven and effective measure
Like Australia, the first country to have introduced neutral packages, France will implement this measure to fight against smoking. Australia imposed in 2012 neutral packages covered with 80% shock images and health warnings.
This measure appears to be useful. Indeed, two scientific studies (British and Australian) affirm that neutral packages are effective in the fight against smoking.
In July 2014, the Australian study from the University of Newcastle revealed that while warning messages and advertisements have little effect on cigarette consumption, neutral packets “make tobacco taste bad” and encourage more tobacco use. to stop smoking cigarettes.
The one published in April 2014, by the British Medical Journal, stated that one in three smokers who bought neutral packets found their brand of cigarettes worse than before. In addition, smokers of neutral packs were 36.8% to think about quitting every day, compared to 21.8% of smokers of conventional packs. The authors of the study concluded that “neutral and standardized packs of cigarettes would make it possible to reduce the attraction of young people to tobacco and would encourage smokers to stop smoking more quickly”.
In France, the tobacco consumption, which had declined from the 1970s, has increased since 2005, particularly among women and in disadvantaged socio-economic classes, reaching nearly 34% of adults according to the National Institute for Sanitary Surveillance.
Cigarettes kill 200 times a day in France and lose between 10 and 15 years of life without health problems for each smoker.
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