A novel way to stop youngsters from smoking

In the article “City’s illicit cigarette trade costs local jobs’’ (Irish Examiner, July 30), Joe Sweeney of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents described the proposed plain packaging of tobacco products as “just a feel-good gimmick that will drive up the illegal trade”.

Far from being a “gimmick”, standardised packaging of tobacco products is the most innovative means of stopping young people from taking up smoking, and is a policy the Irish Heart Foundation strongly supports.

Tobacco companies invest huge sums of money in advertising and marketing their products. They use different colours and branding to recruit new customers, who are nearly always children and young people. Irish legislation has been introduced to ban tobacco advertising in many forms and the introduction of plain packaging would end the last legal form of tobacco advertising to young people.