Aussie cigarette law takes effect

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A law forcing tobacco firms to sell cigarettes in plain packets came into effect in Australia on Saturday in an effort to strip any glamor from smoking and prevent young people from taking up the habit.

The new law, the first of its kind anywhere the world, came into force despite a vigorous legal challenge by big tobacco, which argued that the legislation infringed its intellectual property rights by banning trademarks.

All cigarettes will now have to be sold in identical, olive-brown packets bearing the same typeface and largely covered with graphic health warnings.

A cashier at a Sydney newsagent said many customers said they found the new packaging, which must feature graphic images such as a gangrenous foot, mouth cancer or a skeletal man dying of cancer, off-putting. Some smokers were asking to pick and choose the images on their packets, with the photograph of gangrenous toes bothering many consumers, as well as one of a sick child affected by cigarette smoke.

Another retailer, Anas Hasan, said the most preferred packs pictured a hand stubbing out a cigarette, while some smokers were buying cigarette cases so they did not have to look at the images.

"They hate it. I smoke and I hate it," he said of the new packaging as he opened the doors on the cigarette display case in his Coogee shop to reveal the new packs, which cannot be openly displayed.

Anti-smoking campaigners have welcomed the new law, which stipulates that 75 percent of the front of packets must feature the graphic images.

Stafford Sanders from Action on Smoking and Health Australia said that research had suggested people would be put off by the packaging.

Sanders said some people had become quite upset and offended by the images.

The percentage of smokers in Australia has dropped from about 50 percent in the 1950s to 15 percent now, and the government is aiming to push it down to 10 percent by 2018.

With 80 percent of smokers starting before the age of 18, and 99 percent before they turn 26, health authorities hope the new packaging will have the biggest impact on young people.

Questions:

1. What is the purpose of the new packaging law?

2. What color are the packets?

3. What is the current percentage of cigarette smokers in Australia?

Answers:

1. To strip any glamor from smoking and prevent young people from taking up the habit.

2. Olive-brown.

3. 15 percent.

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Emily Cheng is an editor at China Daily. She was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Media, English Literature and Politics. She has worked in the media industry since starting university and this is the third time she has settled abroad - she interned with a magazine in Hong Kong 2007 and studied at the University of Leeds in 2009.