Australia：$5 A Pack - old Smokes Go in Fire Sale

Source from:  Brisbane (QLD) Courier-Mail (au)  12/03/2012

CIGARETTES were sold for as little as $5 a pack as vendors cleared traditional branded stock that is now illegal to sell.

From last night, retailers had to set aside any remaining branded stock and hand it back to tobacco companies for destruction.

All tobacco must now be sold in drab plain packaging with health warnings covering 75 per cent of the container.

Rather than hand over their unsold smokes, some stores are almost giving them away.

A News Limited survey of 100 stores across the country found widespread reductions.

One in six stores surveyed were selling 20s for less than $10. Plain-packaged smokes were also being heavily discounted.

A BP service station at Blakeview in Adelaide's north was selling three types of some branded packs - Kent, Alpine and Winfield - for $5 yesterday.

Action on Smoking and Health chief Anne Jones said the big companies had threatened to flood the market with cheap cigarettes after plain packaging was introduced.

However, tobacco companies denied they were engaged in discounting.

Imperial Tobacco Australia estimated as many as 540 million cigarettes in now illegally branded packaging would have to be destroyed as a result of the new laws.

"We anticipate that it could take up to six months to process non-compliant branded stock that is returned after the December 1 deadline," a tobacco company spokesman said.

From today, individuals selling tobacco in non-compliant packaging face fines of between $1320 and up to $220,000 under the new plain packaging regime. A corporation risks penalties of $6600 to $1.1 million if they sell cigarettes in branded packs.

Scores of vendors said sales had slumped since plain-packaged cigarettes first began to hit shelves more than two months ago.

More than a quarter of stores surveyed reported recent declines.

Smokers have already complained that the taste of their cigarettes has changed since plain packaging began to enter the marketplace two months ago.

Cancer Council Australia chief Professor Ian Olver said: "We were always confident that plain packaging would take away a lot of the glamour that seduces young people into a tobacco addiction, because the evidence is so compelling."

Heart Foundation chief Lyn Roberts said people who smoked were at least twice as likely to have a heart attack and three times as likely to have a stroke. Enditem