Australian smokers more likely to quit due to plain packaging laws: Research

Australia's world-first tobacco plain packaging laws are working successfully according to research released by the Cancer Council of Victoria on Thursday.

The research, published as a supplement to the British Medical Journal, is the first "comprehensive evaluation" of the legislation, and it discovered that plain packaging reduced the appeal of cigarettes to adolescents and adults alike.

It also revealed that plain packaging encouraged more smokers to attempt to quit smoking.

The Cancer Council Victoria's Professor Melanie Wakefield said that smokers were up to 27 percent more likely to want to quit as a result of the plain packaging and the graphic health warnings displayed on the cartons.

"After plain packaging, that went up to nearly 27 per cent of people who made quit attempts," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Thursday.

"That's really an important outcome because high brand appeal and brand image is very important in terms of young people choosing to take up smoking."

Wakefield said the research could result in other countries implementing similar laws.

"These papers provide the first comprehensive set of results of real-world plain packaging, and they are pointing very strongly to success in achieving the legislation's aims," she said in a statement.

"These results should give confidence to countries considering plain packaging... they not only reduce appeal of tobacco products and increase the effectiveness of health warnings, but also diminish the tobacco industry's ability to use packs to mislead consumers about the harms of smoking."

The legislation was introduced in Australia in December 2012, much to the displeasure of tobacco companies which argued that it would only create a black market for tobacco causing prices to fall, but researcher Dr Michelle Scollo said that "these studies found no evidence of either of these effects." Endi