As of this Sunday, tobacconists no longer receive packs of cigarettes with brand names and logos. Only neutral packages are now delivered to them.
Marketed packages are almost dead, long live the neutral package. Since this Sunday, November 20, only these packaging must be delivered to tobacco retailers: manufacturers and distributors will have had 6 months, from May 20, 2016, to dispose of their stocks of non-neutral packages.
Then the next step will be January 1, 2017, when the neutral packages will be the only packages sold in tobacconists: tobacconists will have until this date to sell their stocks of non-neutral packages. This period will be specified in an ordinance to be published shortly.
But the change is not made without difficulty: “All the packages are identical, the marks are written in very small”, recently protested in The Express Bernard Gasq, president of the Ile-de-France federation of tobacconists. Beyond a drop in income that they expect, tobacconists therefore also fear selling the wrong package. The health authorities, for their part, are more determined than ever to make the neutral package an effective tool in the fight against smoking.
Shock photos would prevent 650,000 deaths in the United States
A recent study confirms that changing the packaging of packages has an impact on consumers. Conducted by a team of researchers from the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center (United States), it reveals that the clearly illustrated warnings on cigarette packages, recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), would prevent thousands deaths in the United States. More exactly 652,000 deaths over the next few years. This would prevent 92,000 low birth weight births, 145,000 premature births and approximately 1,000 cases of sudden infant death in the United States.
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