Plain Packaging – efectul dominoului
Plain Packaging – the Domino Effect

Summary/Abstract: The first regulation on tobacco plain packaging was adopted in Australia, in 2011, with the aim of making cigarette boxes unappealing, thus reducing the prevalence and uptake of smoking in the overriding interest that is public health. Tobacco companies strongly opposed the measure, considering it as an unacceptable de facto expropriation of their (intellectual) properties, namely their powerful brands. They brought actions in court against the state, but their claims were rejected by judges, based on the superior public interest pursued by the restrictive regulations. The history repeats itself each time another state adopts similar provisions on similar grounds, like in a domino game, each run of a tile reinforcing the arguments of the previous one.

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