Tobacco companies are designing cigarette packs to resemble bottles of perfume or with lids that flip open like a lighter to lure young people into smoking.

Research published yesterday reveals the lengths to which the industry has gone to make its packs attractive to new generations of smokers as opportunities for promoting its products have been progressively reduced.

Responding to last week's launch of a public consultation on tobacco packaging by the Department of Health, Cancer Research…

The government of Australia, which wants to impose the world's first-ever ban on logos printed on cigarette packaging, has a unique marketing challenge: How to create a product package whose intent is to repel consumers.

A proposed Australian law, being watched by governments globally and challenged by companies including British American Tobacco Plc, would require cigarettes to be sold in dark olive- brown packages, with corporate logos replaced by graphic images of diseases blamed on…

Indonesian tobacco companies will be forced to place photos of horrific health problems caused by smoking on every pack and advertisers will be banned from showing cigarettes under a planned government regulation.

The Health Ministry provided a photo of an Indonesian-made cigarette packets, sold abroad, featuring pictures of rotting teeth and diseased limbs, as an example.

Under the regulation, photographic health warnings will cover 40 percent of a cigarette pack, along with written warnings.

The tobacco industry's constitutional challenge to enforced plain packaging has hit a central problem: smoking kills.

After six hours of legal argument by the tobacco multinationals in the High Court yesterday, the Chief Justice, Robert French, raised the question of whether previous cases cited by legal counsel to support the companies' case dealt with a product comparable to cigarettes.

Justice French put it to leading counsel Bret Walker, SC, who had referred to cases dating back to the…

The New Zealand cabinet has agreed in principle to introduce plain packaging for all tobacco products in New Zealand, following a similar move in Australia.

The packaging will display only health warnings and the contact details for Quitline - the government-funded service helping smokers stub out, Associate Health Minister Tariana Turia says.

"Smoking is the single biggest cause of preventable death and disease in New Zealand and we must be prepared to take bold steps towards achieving our…

The government is considering plans to strip all branding from cigarette packs sold in England in a bid to make smoking appear less attractive.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley told the Times the government did not work with tobacco companies as it wanted them to have "no business" in the UK.

He said 5% of 11 to 15-year-olds were regular smokers and the habit led to nearly 100,000 deaths in the UK yearly.

The government is to launch its consultation on the issue on Monday.

Vending machine ban

Ecuador has finalized requirements for a series of 6 picture-based warnings to appear on the bottom 60% of the front and back packages of cigarettes effective July 15, 2012.  The government announcement regarding the content of picture warnings was made March 9, 2012.

Also, a single qualitative toxic emission information will be required to appear on 70% of one side panel.  Misleading descriptors including light and mild have been prohibited.

To view additional information on the warning…

The U.S. government on Tuesday defended graphic tobacco labels and advertising that use pictures of rotting teeth and diseased lungs as accurate and necessary to warn consumers about the risks of smoking.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday asked a U.S. appeals court to undo a lower court ruling that said such labels were unconstitutional, violating tobacco companies' free-speech rights.

Mark Stern, a lawyer from the U.S. Justice Department representing the FDA, said the labels…