It is easy to believe that smoking may be illegal in much of the developed world in 30 years’ time. The authorities are moving inch by inch to make the habit more difficult to pursue. The European Court of Justice yesterday threw out a challenge by the industry on curbs on packaging and on menthol cigarettes.
Plain packaging will arrive in this country next year. The impact of all this on the numbers of people smoking is hard to quantify. Imperial Brands, which was quietly retitled from its venerable Imperial Tobacco name earlier this year, suffered a fall in the number of cigarette equivalents sold of 3.1 per cent in the six months to the end of March, despite the addition of several American brands