Size of cigarette packets

People trying to distance themselves from the smoking habit in Malta will surely find that the local standard cigarette packet size of 20 is not helping them in controlling their deadly addiction. In the interest of cigarette machines and state revenue, packs come in uniform size.

In many European countries, increases of cigarette tax can cause the quantity of cigarettes in the pack to change, in order to achieve the same end price. In the United States, the quantity of cigarettes in a pack is set at 20.

Smokers in Malta should have some degree of freedom of choice to smoke cigarette packets of a smaller size than the local standard of 20. Why should smokers have to pay between Lm1.35 and Lm1.75 (at local retail prices) to buy a 20-size packet when they can be satisfied in their smoking needs and be better off moneywise with, say, a 10-size pack?

Our legislators should be praised in levying substantial tax and duty, and in establishing prices for cigarettes, introducing restrictions on advertising and marketing, the display of larger health warnings (including pictorial health warnings in Maltese and English) and making obligatory statements of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide smoke on packets. To be commended highly was the introduction of increased restrictions (such as the prohibition of smoking in many public places) and raising the ages at which cigarettes may be purchased.

But the government has other social obligations to help smokers wanting to buy smaller than 20-size packets. And these obligations can be fulfilled by putting on the market packets with fewer than 20 cigarettes, thus making it possible for smokers not to purchase more than their daily requirements of cigarettes and in the process also helping them not to be ripped off of their wage's earnings in having to spend more than what they need. This should assume wider importance when there is so much rightful complaining about the cost of living.