Thursday 8 June 2017

Plain packaging fake news

This brief and wafer-thin article in The Scotsman looks very much like fake news...

New packaging laws see slump in cigarette sales

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/news/new-packaging-laws-see-slump-in-cigarette-sales-1-4466340
New plain packaging laws see slump in cigarette sales

CIGARETTE retailers have seen a dip in sales since laws enforcing plain packaging were introduced, according to a recent report.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/news/new-packaging-laws-see-slump-in-cigarette-sales-1-4466340
Cigarette retailers have seen a dip in sales since laws enforcing plain packaging were introduced, according to a recent report.

The new laws were introduced barely two weeks ago. It seems unlikely that research could be carried out, reviewed and published in such a short space of time. I can find no trace of this alleged report online, nor can I find any reference to it.

And two-thirds of independent retailers were left with stock they could no longer legally sell, according to a report in trade magazine The Grocer.

The Grocer article is here. It's paywalled but is referenced in this article. It does indeed say that retailers have been left with unsold stock of products that are now illegal to sell. Hardly surprising. It doesn't say anything about plain packaging causing a drop in sales.

Nearly every claim in The Scotsman article that can be verified is untrue, so I rather suspect that the claim about sales is also untrue.

The ban, which also outlawed menthol cigarettes and smaller (30g) bags of rolling tobacco, saw the cheapest packet of cigarettes costing £8.82, according to research by consultants Him.

The 'ban' - ie. the Tobacco Products Directive - does not ban menthol cigarettes until 2020. It doesn't ban 30 gram bags of rolling tobacco - and 30 gram bags are not small by any reasonable definition. And you can easily buy a pack of cigarettes for less than £7.

Four errors in one sentence is pretty impressive. Until I see some evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume the headline is also wrong.

No comments: