LAUSR

For more than a quarter of a century, tobacco companies have argued that plain packaging will increase sales of counterfeit cigarettes.1 The claim, that if all packs look the same they would be easier for criminals to copy and lower the cost to, and confuse, the public, who would be less able to distinguish fake from legitimate packs, seems credible. However, the presence of full branding is no barrier to duplicating cigarette packs, and the cost per pack for mass produced counterfeit cigarettes is so low that plain packaging could not reduce the price paid by consumers.2 As for confusion among the public, counterfeit cigarettes are generally significantly cheaper than …