Australia was the first country in the world to introduce mandatory plain packaging for tobacco products - and the UK will have followed suit by May this year. But will any country copy Australia's plan to keep increasing taxes until a packet of cigarettes costs AUD$40 (£24)?
It's not easy being a smoker in Australia.
The smoking bans started inside - in workplaces, bars and restaurants - and moved out.
"Smokers would congregate on footpaths and near public transport creating clouds of smoke - what we call 'smoking hotspots'," says Mark Driver, Sydney's Park and Recreation Planner.
Meanwhile...here are TWENTY FIVE TALES OF MARKET FAILURE
Smoking is often seen as an example of a negative externality in consumption.
A school has been criticised after it allowed pupils as young as 11 to smoke in the playground.
Schoolchildren aged 11 to 16 had been given permission to smoke their cigarettes on the grounds of Elmete Central School in Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorks.
Cigarettes were confiscated at the beginning of the day but then given back to pupils, by staff, during break and lunchtimes for them to smoke on school premises.
Anti-smoking health campaigners have blasted the decision as "inappropriate, wrong and unethical" while Leeds City Council education chiefs have launched an investigation at the school for 75 pupils with behavioural and emotional difficulties.
Staff at a school for problem pupils have been giving out cigarettes to children as young as 11 and allowing them to smoke in the playground.
The cigarettes are taken off the youngsters at the start of the day but given back to them during their morning break and at lunchtime.
The controversial policy, approved by a headteacher, was put in place to stop pupils from leaving the site to have a cigarette – as staff are obliged to do.
England's top medical officer has suggested smoking should be banned in parks and children's play areas.
Read more...but is the medical officer right i.e. is this the most effective way to reduce this market failure? (see bottom of post)
Dame Sally Davies said she supports any measures that will “reduce active smoking” as she urged local authorities to extend smoke-free zones in public places.
Dame Sally, 65, spoke out just weeks after the Royal Society for Public Health said smoking should be banned outside bars and restaurants.
The organisation, which represents more than 6,000 public health professionals, also wants “exclusion zones” around pubs, in parks and at the entrances to schools.
The proposal comes eight years after smoking was made illegal inside pubs, clubs and other public buildings.
Commenting on the society’s recommendation, Dame Sally said: “I know a number of areas are introducing smokefree policies, for example, in children’s playgrounds. I welcome any measures to reduce both active smoking and its role modelling in front of children.
E-cigarettes should be banned from school premises to stop children assuming they are safe, heads say.
Head teachers' union NAHT is worried pupils may want to copy parents they see using them in the playground.
It comes as a ban on sales of the nicotine aids to under-18s is announced by the government.
The Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association said schools had a right to ban any activity on their grounds but the thinking was "muddled".
E-cigarettes were originally designed to help smokers quit, and some researchers have said they could save many thousands of lives in the UK.
But concerns are growing that young people may start using them or "vaping" without ever having smoked.
Plans to ban smoking in school and hospital grounds and playgrounds in Wales have been launched.
But this second attempt to bring in the Public Health Bill does not include a controversial ban on e-cigarettes in some enclosed places.
The Welsh Government plans, first outlined in 2014, still include tattooing and piercing regulation.
Public bodies will also have to assess the effects on physical and mental health of any decisions they make.
Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers.
Zoos, theme parks and anywhere else children play should also become no-smoking zones, in a significant proposed expansion of the outdoor areas in which smokers cannot light up.
Smoking has been illegal in enclosed public places such as bars, nightclubs and restaurants, as well as public transport and work vehicles, across the UK since 2007.
A petition has been launched to try and ban people from smoking in parks.
Despite growing evidence of the dangers of secondhand smoke, and a ban in every enclosed public space, it is still legal to smoke in most public parks and playgrounds. But one woman has launched a petition try and bring the ban to public playgrounds, arguing that smoking in them can damage children's health.
Annie Dressner said that she had been inspired to launch the petition after a woman started smoking near her and her son in a public park. Despite Ms Dressner saying that she would rather she didn’t, the woman continued to smoke, Ms Dressner wrote in the description of her petition.
“Yesterday a woman asked if it would bother me if she smoked in the playground while on the seesaw with her young daughter,” she wrote in the petition’s description. “When I said it would bother me, she told me that my one year old son would turn out to be "arrogant" and smoked anyway.”
a. smokers may ignore ban
b. ban may not be enforced
c. may be expensive to enforce this
d. why not raise taxes?
e. this is schools - why not educate...provide more information?
f. how many smoke in playgrounds - maybe ban affects so few people or - may even attract smokers (REBELS)
g. what about outside the playground?
h. what about support for the ban eg through packaging?
