Smoking rules

In response to Sheila Duffy (Friends of The Scotsman, 22 July) it is interesting to note that the chief executive of Ash Scotland reports that plain packaging in Australia is not putting customers off and that there has been no change in the percentage of smokers purchasing tobacco from small businesses.

One wonders, then, exactly what the point of this policy is. Retailers in Scotland will soon have to deal with the cumulative impact of the tobacco display ban, plain packaging and the European Tobacco Products Directive.

In the meantime, proxy purchase will continue to be the main way young people obtain cigarettes, the illicit trade will still cost some £2 billion annually and health inequality will remain as the main tobacco-related problem we have in Scotland.

Yet another policy totally fails to hit the target(s).

JOHN LEE

Scottish Grocers’ Federation

Queensferry Road

Edinburgh