THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Australia's new plain packaging for cigarettes – which becomes mandatory from Saturday - have been branded "disgusting" by smokers who say they make the cigarettes taste worse.
The new packets, which are blank aside from gruesome health warnings, have been filling shelves for the past two months as part of the toughest anti-tobacco measures in the world.
Despite legal battles and claims of "dirty tricks" by tobacco companies, all cigarettes in Australia must now be sold in drab olive packets featuring macabre images of sick babies, dying cancer sufferers and diseased feet, eyeballs and lungs. Smokers' advice groups have reported being inundated with calls from angry smokers who say their cigarettes now taste "pathetic" and "sickening".
Joe Xia, who owns a busy convenience store just outside Sydney's Chinatown, said the packets are "disgusting" and have been annoying customers who dislike the new warnings.
"People still smoke – now they also complain," he told the Daily Telegraph.
"Nothing will stop them from smoking. But it is hard at night-time. People come from the pub and they see these packets and they get irritated." » | Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney | Friday, November 30, 2012
