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The Australian government just announced a higher tax on cigarettes and a ban on logos and branding on cigarette packets! This is great news for the public but of course the tobacco industry is furious.

The new law states that the cigarettes must be sold in plain, standardized packages carrying large, graphic warnings against smoking with the brand name in small print starting in 2012.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stated that “cigarettes are not cool, cigarettes kill people and this will be the most hard line regime for cigarette packaging anywhere in the world.”

Rudd said Australia also planned new limits on Internet tobacco advertising and would spend 27.8 million dollars on a “hard-hitting” anti-smoking campaign.

“The big tobacco companies will hate what we are doing,” he said. “The government however makes no apology what for what we are doing as it is the right decision.”

Tobacco advertising is outlawed in Australia, and smoking is also banned in most enclosed public spaces such as offices and restaurants.

However, Rudd said some 15,000 Australians die of smoking-related diseases every year, and that tobacco use cost the country 31.5 billion dollars a year in health care and lost productivity.

Public groups welcomed the radical packaging initiative, saying it would help stop children experimenting with cigarettes.

Do you think the USA will follow? I hope so.

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