Cigarette package law to be voted on by MPs before election

[Chippiewill]

Surely the current "smoking will kill you" packaging is more intimidating than just plain packaging.

It won't be just plain, it'll still have the "you're going to die" stuff all over it.

[Yupt]

It won't be just plain, it'll still have the "you're going to die" stuff all over it.

Oh I see, I see.

[Matt]

As I sell cigarettes as part of my job, I've noticed a huge drop in the amount of people that buy not only single packets but entire cartons of cigarettes over here in Australia. People have either quit completely - because the government keep putting the prices up at every available chance - or cut down the amount they smoke (or just gone to somewhere that sells them cheaper than us which is quite unlikely tbh). I don't think the plain packaging alone has done much, but that along with rising prices seems to mean smoking is simply too expensive for people.

I get people coming in every week and they don't allow me to serve them certain packets if it's got a certain picture on it (this is only like 5 people). It just makes it a pain for us lol (+ I'm too nice to say 'no take what you're given'). Having to learn where every cigarette was, was probably the biggest change for me. When they implemented it over here they switched all the brands around in our cabinet too so instead of opening each cabinet and being able to clearly see each brand, they all look the same. I've been there for like 3 years and I still get confused.

One lady only ever takes the image of the fingers and ashtray because the rest of them are pretty gross. If we don't have the fingers she takes the mouth



And when we first got the new packaging, on January 1st (can't remember the year) people were coming in saying that the flavour and taste of certain brands had changed. We didn't know anything about it and told them to contact the suppliers or the brand of cigarette. We had so many people saying they didn't taste the same and in the end I think that also did affect the amount of people who were smoking. It wasn't just one person mentioning the change in taste, it was actually quite a lot of people!

So the change in packaging + being more expensive + a slight change in taste = less people smoking. All those changes were done subtly (apart from the switch of packaging which had to be done once we closed on NYE that year)