Plain packaging ‘can deter young people from smoking’

Introducing plain packaging for cigarettes can help to deter young people from smoking by drawing more attention to the attached health warnings.

This is the conclusion of new University of Bristol research published in the journal Addiction, which utilised eye-tracking technology to assess where people's attentions will be focused when looking at a cigarette packet.

Young people who were occasional smokers were shown to be more likely to pay attention to the health warnings on plain packaging than they would on branded packs.

Meanwhile, non-smokers paid attention to the warnings on both packs and daily smokers tended to avoid looking at the warnings at all, a fact that the researchers believe should be assessed further.

Olivia Maynard, lead researcher from the university's school of experimental psychology, said: "The findings clearly show that cigarette packs without attractive designs and imagery may be an effective method of increasing the prominence of health warnings among young non-established smokers."

This comes in the same week that the Department of Health will close its consultation on potential legal plans to make standardised plain packaging for cigarettes mandatory in the UK.