Plain packaging support figures inflated

The smokers’ group Forest has dismissed claims by Cancer Research that nearly two in three Britons support plans to introduce plain packaging of tobacco in theUK.

Forestsays a recent government consultation on standardised packaging of tobacco attracted around 700,000 responses, half a million of them opposed to plain packaging.

“Forest alone submitted over a quarter of a million signatures against plain packaging,” said Simon Clark, the director ofForest, which runs the Hands Off Our Packs campaign. “In total we estimate that around 500,000 people registered their opposition to the measure.”

“The scale of the public response against standardised packaging has been nothing short of overwhelming. However many polls they commission, the tobacco control industry cannot spin its way out of that.”