Plain cigarette packaging “would save 2,000 lives each year”

Introducing plain cigarette packaging in the UK would save 2,000 lives each year, according to new research.

A new study by journal Addication suggests that introducing plain packaging would stop one in 20 people from taking up smoking and save 2,000 lives in the UK each year, according to the BBC.

The study suggested that plain packaging might also reduce smoking in current smokers by “degrading cue-elicited tobacco-seeking”. It suggested that plain tobacco packs were 9 per cent less attractive to smokers than branded packs.

Last month the Government announced that plain cigarette packaging could be introduced in England as soon as next year.

This would see all branding dropped from packaging apart from the brand name, which would be written in a standardised typeface.

The Department for Health has released images of what plain cigarette packaging might look like in the UK. The designs use Helvetica and a “drab brown” colour palette, alongside graphic health warnings and space for individual brand and variant names.

The DoH has previously said that the “expected health gain measured in life-years and monetised” if plain packaging is introduced would be £29 billion.

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Earlier this week it emerged that plain packaging could cost UK businesses £36.78 million a year, with consultancies who create branded packaging among those taking a financial hit.