With brand logos, colours and other design elements, tobacco packages are an important tool for the tobacco industry to promote their products, especially in places with strict restrictions on tobacco advertising. By mandating all tobacco packages to remove brand logos and use the specified colour and font style, plain packaging eliminates brand elements and remove advertising and promotion effect from the packages. The measure aims to prevent smoking uptake and encourage quitting. A study in the United Kingdom (UK) reveals that plain packing can help ex-smokers to avoid re-initiating smoking behaviours.
The UK implemented plain packaging in May 2016, with a one-year transition period.
Researchers used data from four waves of the Adult Tobacco Policy Survey conducted in 2016 (Wave 1), 2017 (Wave 2), 2019 (Wave 3) and 2022 (Wave 4) to evaluate the impact of plain packaging and pictorial health warnings on ex-smokers. Current smokers at Wave 1 (pre-implementation) who reported having quit smoking at subsequent waves (post-implementation) were included in this study. A considerable proportion of ex-smokers thought that plain packaging played a role in maintaining their abstinence. Approximately one-third (33.5% to 35.9% across Waves 2 to 4) agreed that the appearance of plain cigarette packs helped them to stay quit at least a little, including one-tenth (8.9% to 10.0%) who thought that it helped a lot. Pictorial health warnings were also found to help almost half (47.5% to 49.3%) of ex-smokers to stay quit at least a little. Further analysis showed that women, ex-smokers aged 40 years or younger, and non-white ex-smokers were more likely to find plain cigarette packs useful in helping them to stay quit. The findings indicate the importance of plain packaging in preventing ex-smokers from re-initiating the harmful habit, an important outcome of the measure which has often been overlooked.
The Tobacco Control Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2025 has been passed and gazetted on 19 September 2025 to implement a series of tobacco control measures in phases. Plain packaging will be introduced in Hong Kong in the second quarter of 2027. COSH calls on the Government to establish details of plain packaging regulations as soon as possible, and consider further warning measures, such as more than one set of pictorial health warnings for rotation, pack inserts for extra information on harms of smoking or smoking cessation, and health warnings on individual cigarettes.
Source: Tobacco Control