Vicky Crichton: Plain packaging will help make smoking less cool

“Fancy”, “posh” and “pretty” – these are all words used by children in Cancer Research UK’s new video to describe a selection of current cigarette packets. Looking at one of the packs, a little boy says: “I think it would be quite fun to play with. It makes you almost happy looking at it.”

For most of us, the idea that children are attracted to these deadly products is simply shocking.

Cigarette packets are not toys or fashion accessories but their impact appears to be similar.

Cancer Research UK statistics released last week showed more than 4,000 people died of lung cancer in Scotland in 2010.

This risk of developing this devastating disease increases significantly in smokers and lung cancer is the likely consequence of an addiction that is promoted to women as being glamorous and to men as offering confidence.

While the high number of cases of lung cancer today can largely be attributed to the high rates of smoking from a couple of decades ago, there is much we can do to prevent a new generation of children from starting to smoke in the first place.

There is no doubt that the ban on smoking in public places has gone a long way to help Scots kick their deadly habit, but much more needs to be done to stop a new generation of children growing up as addicted adult smokers. The next step to help prevent this is to introduce such plain and unattractive cigarette packaging that no teenager would associate the packets with being cool.

A report, which is being released by Cancer Research UK today, refers to documents from the tobacco industry that show that packaging has indeed been developed to appeal to new smokers, through size, colour and design. This is significant when you consider that eight out of ten smokers start before the age of 19.

Plain packaging would strip all branding from cigarette packs, leaving all tobacco packs looking the same. Unbranding cigarette packets won’t stop everyone from smoking but it will give millions of children one less reason to start.

To support our campaign to end the packet racket and sign our petition, visit www.theanswerisplain.org.

• Vicky Crichton is Cancer Research UK’s public affairs manager.