Where There's Smoke, There's Fire: UAE's Drafts Plan for Plain Cigarette Packaging

Analysis

The UAE Ministry of Health has recently proposed legislation which would lead towards plain cigarette packaging designs. Should the proposed legislation be adopted, plain cigarette packaging would likely take effect from as early as 2016.

In a nutshell, the plain packaging of cigarettes would entail that cigarette manufacturers would be banned from featuring any branding on the boxes which would be replaced with large health warnings taking up to 70% of the cover of the cigarette pack. Accordingly, the cigarette packaging would contain a standard appearance and colour across all brands with the brand name only being displayed in a mandatory reduced size in a standardized font and location. The current UAE packaging requirements were introduced in 2012 and require manufacturers to cover 50% of the cigarette packet with pictorial warnings in Arabic and English. However at present, logos, designs and colours are allowed to be depicted on the cigarette boxes.