Packs of ten cigarettes could be banned under a European proposal to crack down on smoking.
The EU’s Health and Consumer Commissioner also unveiled plans to ban menthol cigarettes and to force companies to cover three quarters of their packets with a picture warning.
The idea is to make smoking less attractive to children, who are more likely to buy smaller packets of cigarettes with their pocket money. Youngsters are also more likely to buy flavoured cigarettes.
Flavoured cigarettes, including menthol, strawberry, or vanilla, are set to be banned in the European Union. The EU health commissioner also wants to make pictorial warnings occupy 75% of the pack.
In the proposal there were plans to ban ‘slim’ cigarettes and the sale of packs containing less than 20 cigarettes.
"We're not prohibiting smoking; we're making it less attractive for everyone," said Tonio Borg of the health commission. "Sometimes you need shocking pictures to shock people into stopping smoking."
Glenis Wilmott, Labour leader in the European parliament, told the Guardian: "Cigarette packets should look like they contain a dangerous drug, rather than perfume or lipstick.”
She also proposed additional measures to curb smoking in the EU, "We need to get rid of all branding from cigarette packets, as it is the only space that the tobacco industry has left to market their products.”
To our knowledge, there have been only three prior studies of the effect of menthol cigarettes on lung cancer risk. Results have been ambiguous, with none showing an increased risk for women but two showing dose-related increases for men. Only one study published race-specific results, with no increases for either Whites or Blacks. At the same time studies conducted to date have not provided a clear answer concerning whether smoking menthol cigarettes increases the risk of lung cancer more than smoking non-menthol cigarettes.
Menthol is a naturally occurring compound with topical cooling and anesthetic properties used in a wide range of products. Menthol cigarettes first appeared in the 1920s, but it was not until the mid-1950s that they came into widespread use.
Since 1973, menthol varieties have accounted for 25–30% of all cigarettes sold in the United States. There are strong ethnic differences in the use of menthol cigarettes; more than 60% of Black smokers of both sexes use menthol brands compared with fewer than 25 % of White smokers.
Lung cancer incidence is 50% higher among Black men than among White men. Although Black men are more likely to smoke, it does not appear that the excess occurrence of lung cancer can be fully explained by a higher prevalence of smoking.
