Plain tobacco packaging Court ruled in favour of the Australian government. British American Tobacco placed freedom of information requests on a Cancer Institute NSW research survey of school students aged between 12-17, which asked how they react to plain packaging, where they get cigarettes from and what age they started smoking. The Cancer Council Victoria fought the FOI request, saying that the tobacco company wanted to use the survey information to change their marketing to children to increase cigarette smoking among youth. Phillip Morris was ordered to pay the Australian government's legal fees. A FOI request by Nick Xenophon and Rex Patrick revealed
Plain tobacco packaging trade of drastically cheaper cigarettes had significantly increased, but an article in The British Medical Journal refutes this. After one year of plain cigarette packaging rule implementation, a special supplement to the British Medical Journal described that before plain packaging implementation 20% smokers want to quit, but after implementation 27% smokers want to quit. The study found that plain packaging reduces brand appeal and brand image of tobacco products. If true, this would foretell fewer new smokers taking up the habit. An analysis of Philip Morris claims that "the data is clear that overall tobacco consumption and smoking prevalence has