Tobacco control
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Measuring the effect of cigarette plain packaging on transaction times and selection errors in a simulation experiment.
Australia has introduced legislation to force all cigarette packaging to be generic from 2012 onwards. The tobacco retail industry estimates this will result in transaction times increasing by 15-45 s per pack and is spending at least $A10 million of tobacco industry funds on an advertising campaigns claiming that the increased time and errors associated with plain packaging will ultimately cost small businesses $A 461 million per annum and endanger 15,000 jobs. We undertook an objective experiment to test these claims. ⋯ Rather than plain packaging requiring an additional 45 s per transaction, our results suggest that it will, if anything, modestly decrease transaction times and selection errors.