Smoke allure

A group of well-meaning health professionals and professors made the case for plain cigarette packaging (Letters, 19 April).

They claim that current packaging promotes tobacco products as “sophisticated, elegant, slimming, rugged or attractive”.

It is further claimed that brands, varieties and designs are “carefully crafted” to give these impressions. Presumably the writers have examined displays and experienced these resulting feelings.

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Today I visited my local Co-op supermarket to test this out, and I found their arrays to be uniformly dull and incapable of evoking any emotion whatever; that is, apart from the prominent SMOKING KILLS warning on every one of them.

Inevitably, a “large and growing body of evidence” is deployed, claiming that plain, unbranded packaging will thwart supposed attempts to make smoking attractive, especially to young people, but no statistics or sources are offered.

The British Lung Foundation and ASH Scotland have promoted equally far-fetched arguments and they should all realise that any unsubstantiated claim of evidence destroys their whole argument.

Smoking is a ridiculous habit, but it’s legal, so the honest approach would be to campaign for sale of the product to be banned.

Robert Dow

Ormiston Road

Tranent

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