Up to now there is no concrete evidence that the number of smuggling cigarettes can increase due to the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes.

Tobacco companies however have hinted on possible increase of illicit trade of cigarettes because as they explained plain packages are easy to counterfeit.

It sounds quite logical but according to the last statistics it hasn't happened yet. The members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health told that the outlook of a cigarette pack plays not the main role in the capacity of counterfeit. There are special security features which can be present on standard packs as well. They added that the usual design of cigarette packs could be also easily faked. They emphasized once again that the main thing the smugglers pay attention to is not the design of a cigarette pack.

The chairman of MP, Liberal Democrat MP Stephen William added that there are no reasons to worry that new packaging can provoke the increase of illicit cigarette trade. According to his point of view such thoughts belong to tobacco companies which are worried about the appearance of new packaging for cigarettes and are trying in such a way to scare the government. However, whether this idea is true or not remains an open issue.

It's noteworthy to remember that Australia was the first country that introduced the new design for cigarette packaging depicting on them the images of various diseases. The Australian government believes this anti-smoking campaign will help to reduce the number of smokers, especially among the adolescents.