The European Union has decided to increase the size and horror factor of health warnings on cigarette packets, but New Scientist can reveal a new twist: a talking cigarette packet that recites a health warning every time you open it.
Ironically, the idea comes from a UK firm that supplies machinery to make cigarettes.
The revelation comes from a patent (GB 2351061) filed by Molins in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. A stiff plastic strip connects the hinged lid of a cigarette packet to a microchip and a miniature loudspeaker hidden in the base.
As the smoker opens the lid, the strip slides to close a switch and trigger playback of a small recording. This could be music – a funeral march, perhaps – or a health warning “in any or several languages”.
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Anti-smoking organisation Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is highly amused by the idea of a cigarette packet which verbally tells a smoker “this may kill you”. But spokeswoman Amanda Sandford fears that it’s something “tobacco companies would only use if required by law”.
But Molins’ spokesman Andrew Pennycook thinks it could prove popular: “The industry is always looking for innovations that give an advantage,” he says.
