Plain Pack Shenanigans

Smoking Rates Decline, Again

Smoking Rates Decline, Again

Paul
Today saw the release of the latest set of data for smoking prevalence within the UK from the Office of National Statistics Annual Population Survey and the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey. As you would expect from the UK, with its generally liberal stance on e-cigarettes, and despite the shitstorm of piss poor media reporting on various studies, stupid legislation proposals, daft bans, and general bullshit; e-cigarettes remain the most common aid for people to move away from tobacco.

Perceptive science

Paul
There has been a whole slew of reports in the media and on the various “Smoke Free” Twitter accounts recently all pertaining to the recent plain packs debacle. As you may know, Australia became the first to implement plain packs back in 2012. With that implementation, those rather pleasant insane folks over in Tobacco Control kept a very careful beady eye on the rate of smoking down under. Despite there being very little evidence to show that it is having any effect on the actual rate of smoking, instead they try to view it from the perspective of falling sales indicates fewer smokers.