Australia has become the first country in the world to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes. From now, all tobacco company logos and colours will be banned from packets.
They have been replaced by a dreary, uniform, green/brown, colour accompanied by a raft of anti-smoking messages and photographs. The only concession to the tobacco companies is their name and the name of the brand variant in small print at the bottom of the box.
"This is the last gasp of a dying industry," declared Australia's Health Minister Tanya Plibersek.
Anne Jones of the anti-smoking group Ash (Action on Smoking and Health) agrees.
"Plain packaging has taken the personality away from the pack", she says.
"Once you take away all the colour coding and imagery and everything is standardised with massive health warnings, you really do de-glamorise the product."
