The sale of cigarettes in packets of 10 is expected to be banned by 2016 after MEPs voted for tighter restrictions on tobacco use across Europe.

Electronic cigarette substitutes, which are increasingly popular as a less harmful alternative to smoking, will be subjected to the same strict limitations on advertising as ordinary tobacco products under the plan aimed at reducing smoking among women and young people.

Linda McAvan, the Labour MEP who drafted the legislation, said the new rules would protect “children from being targeted by tobacco companies” via the lure of attractive branding, small female friendly packs and flavoured cigarettes.

“Four thousand British children start smoking each week that s a staggering 200,000 new childhood smokers a year,” she said.

The new rules must be agreed by ministers and voted on again by the European Parliament before they become law throughout the European Union, but with most governments in favour this is not expected to pose an obstacle.

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The ban on packets of 10, supported by the Government, would hit two million British smokers because the small packs targeted by the EU because they are thought to be favoured by the young account for 38 per cent of cigarettes sold in the UK.

It came under immediate fire from the smokers group Forest, whose campaigns manager, Angela Harbutt, said that buying smaller packets was “an economic necessity” for some. “It is a mean spirited measure that punishes those on low incomes,” she said.

Apart from Britain Italy is the only other EU country that does not already require cigarettes to be sold in packets of 19 or 20.

The ban will also have an impact on British smokers of hand rolling tobacco. Many British roll up smokers buy their leaf tobacco in 12.5 gram packets which will be banned by the EU, with a new minimum sales weight of 20g.

MEPs also voted to ban menthol cigarettes by 2022, a decision that delayed by five years a European Commission proposal that would have prohibited mint, fruit or sweet flavoured tobacco by the end of 2016.

The menthol ban will eventually wipe out annual British cigarette sales worth up to f650 million, imposing losses of over f6 billion a year on the tobacco industry, which has warned that the measure will lead to increased smuggling.

Drago Azinovic, the EU region head of Philip Morris International, warned “MEPs have voted to ban an entire segment of the legal market, despite the inevitable increase in illegal trade that this will fuel.”

Under the new EU rules, graphic health warnings, including colour photographs of tumours, must cover 65 per cent of tobacco packaging relegating the names of famous brands such as Benson and Hedges, Marlboro or Gauloises to the bottom edge of cigarette packets.

As well as taking a significant towards plain packaging, the use of words such as “light”, “mild” and “low tar” to describe cigarettes and other tobacco products will be prohibited completely.

In a setback for public health campaigners, the commission, most national governments, including Britain and the pharmaceutical industry, most MEPs rejected a ban on longer, narrower “slim” cigarettes, or for the sale of electronic cigarettes to be restricted by classing them as medicines.

“It is bitterly disappointing that MEPs chose to protect the interests of the tobacco lobby today, rather than protect the health of our young people,” said Keith Taylor, a Green MEP.

As cigarette smoking has been increasingly stigmatised and prohibited, the sale of e cigarettes has risen dramatically from f2.5 million in 2011 to f23.9m last year.

E cigarettes consist of a battery, a cartridge containing nicotine, a solution of propylene glycol or glycerine mixed with water, and an atomiser to turn the solution into a vapour.

Their growing popularity led the commission to propose classing them as a medicine alongside nicotine patches and other “smoking cessation” products.

Current plans by Britain s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to class e cigarettes as medicinal products could now be overturned by the EU decision.

A Department of Health spokesman said “We are disappointed with the decision to reject the proposal to regulate nicotine containing products, including e cigarettes, as medicines,” said a department of health spokesman.

“We believe these products need to be regulated as medicines and will continue to make this point during further negotiations.”

New cancer study says e-cigarettes are still bad for you

Winston cigarettes on tumblr

We ve all seen it before an individual who obviously thinks they re super cool is hanging out in a bar, concert, or just casually sitting eating dinner. A puff of vapor shoots out of their mouth as onlookers briefly gawk at the spectacle, only to realize that this individual isn t smoking a real cigarette and is instead puffing away on an e cig.

Since Canada and most U.S. states, although New York has some e cig bans in place, don t have laws about smoking (or rather vaping) e cigarettes in public places, doing so seems to be a strange but mostly accepted activity.

But the next time your friend who s trying to quit smoking says e cigarettes aren t harmful to their health, remind them about this recently released study. While the science is complicated, according to these new findings, people exposed to e cig vapor suffer from similar negative effects to individuals who are smoking or are around normal cigarette smoke.

Scientists exposed human bronchial cells to e cigarette vapor and found that it altered the cells in almost the same way tobacco does. The saving grace for vapor smoking enthusiasts is it s still unclear if this cell alteration actually causes cancer. According to Nature, in the study e cigarettes, showed a similar pattern of gene expression, but the changes are not identical to the effects of smoking regular cigarettes.

They may be safer than tobacco , but our preliminary studies suggest that they may not be benign, said study author Avrum Spira, a genomics and lung cancer researcher at Boston University.

A recent study also indicated the liquid nicotine inside e cigs is poisonous and deadly if consumed directly, to the shock of hopefully no one. Apparently an e cigarette also exploded in a U.K. bar recently, setting a server on fire.

In the U.S., the country s Food and Drug Administration still isn t regulating e cigs even though the product has quickly evolved into a billion dollar industry. Health Canada has banned the sale of e cigarettes containing nicotine and it s also illegal to make any kind of health benefit claims about the product, although this certainly hasn t stopped convenience stores across the country from selling e cigarettes containing nicotine.

E cigarettes are also available on the internet through various legitimate and shady retailers, so even if they end up being more heavily regulated in terms of sale, people will still easily be able to get their hands on them.

The moral of the story here is, while smoking e cigarettes is harmful, it still hurts you less than smoking actual cigarettes. Also, many people claim e cigs a great cigarette cessation tool, although some studies refute this.

For the full study check out this link.

Follow me on Twitter Patrick ORourke.