It's not easy being green cigarette packaging

HE federal government has clarified the colour of its proposed plain packaging for cigarettes - at the request of olive growers.

"I need to publicly say to the olive growers that we don't think that their products are in any way connected with the very unattractive product of tobacco," federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon told reporters in western Sydney today.

"Even though the colour we are using is olive green ... I am now calling it drab green."

When the legislation was announced earlier this year, the government said the plain packaging would be olive green, but olive growers objected.

The colour rumpus is just one of the issues the government will be taking into consideration before enforcing plain packaging for tobacco products later this year.

"There is lots of things in the legislation that people have views about ... but ultimately the fight we face with the tobacco industry is they don't want to see this measure be successful," she said.
"There is fundamentally no good news from the tobacco industry. They sell a product that kills people ... we want to make sure that the tobacco industry can't use a package to try to attract new smokers to their product."

British American Tobacco Australia is expected tomorrow to launch a national media campaign against the federal government's plain packaging proposal.

British American Tobacco is known to be the producer of Dunhill cigarettes.