Health campaigners are opening a new front against smoking by pushing for tobacco companies to face criminal charges.
Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) has begun work on pressing the director of public prosecutions (DPP) to bring charges or to allow a private prosecution.
If approved, the use of criminal law would push the industry into even faster retreat. There were 7.6m adult smokers in Britain in 2016, and the figures are expected to have dropped since plain packaging was introduced in May.
The latest line of attack is furthest advanced in Holland, where lawyers have filed charges with the public prosecutor, acting for a youth smoking prevention foundation and patients, including a mother of four children diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Anne Marie van