Government sticks to vending machine ban

By Gurjit Degun

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Cigarette vending machines Tobacco Nicotine

The Government has stuck to plans to ban cigarette vending machines in England from 1 October. The Department of Health (DoH) today published...

The Government has stuck to plans to ban cigarette vending machines in England from 1 October.

The Department of Health (DoH) today published Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A Tobacco Control Plan for England, which sets out the Government's plans for tobacco control for the next five years.

The document states: "We are robustly defending the legislation to stop the sale of tobacco products from vending machines against two judicial review cases brought by the tobacco industry.

"From 1 October 2011, tobacco products will no longer be sold from vending machines in England."

The changes, which coincide with No Smoking Day, aim to reduce the number of young people taking up smoking as the DoH states "vending machines are self-service, they offer young people easy and poorly supervised access to tobacco".

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "Smoking is undeniably one of the biggest and most stubborn challenges in public health. Over eight million people in England still smoke and it causes more than 80,000 deaths each year.

"My ambition is to reduce smoking rates faster over the next five years than has been achieved in the past five years.

"We want to do everything we can to help people to choose to stop smoking and encourage young people not to start smoking in the first place. We will help local communities to take a comprehensive approach to reducing smoking so we can change social attitudes to smoking."

The DoH also plans to end the display of tobacco in shops.

Related topics Legislation

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