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If you are addicted, you don't read notices

This short BBC news item to take note of the move to standardised packaging in Australia is important. I was especially struck by the views of the British people about what plain packaging does and the arguments of Simon Clark.

UK tobacco retailers should watch this and think about what is being said and look at the tobacco displays. I will share this link with my MP and ask him to contact the health minister and say we don't want such an experiment here.

Of course I am biased but as Nate Silver demonstrates in The Signal and the Noise, everyone is. The arguments on this short item, saved for us on You Tube by Simon as the BBC does not upload Breakfast on to its iplayer, are persuasive.

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