Health department announce graphic cigarette packaging

Smokers are to face further measures to put them off the habit with a new graphic pictures campaign announced by the Department of Health today (August 29th).

Photographs of diseased lungs are some of the 15 images that will be printed on the front of all tobacco products sold in Britain by the end of 2009 and manufacturers will have to start complying by the end of next year.

The move makes the UK the first country in the European Union to publish such pictures on the front of cigarette packets.

However, the move has meant with criticism from certain sectors who think that smokers are being victimised.

"You could construct exactly the same argument for placing graphic images on bottles of alcohol, but because most people like to drink alcohol, the government doesn't want to offend the majority," said Neil Rafferty, a spokesman for smokers' lobby group Forest.

"The government are bullying smokers simply because they can get away with it."