I would like to respond to your article reporting that children find colourful cigarette packets more enticing than plain packets (The Argus, March 18).

I, like many other newsagents and convenience stores, am a retailer of tobacco products. While I certainly believe that people under the age of 18 should be prevented from accessing and smoking tobacco, I do not feel standard packaging – or plain packaging as it is more commonly known – is the most effective way to achieve these aims.

Plain packaging would make it much easier and cheaper for criminals to produce fake packs. This would fuel smuggling and illicit trade on our streets and consequently increase the access that young people – the very people the government is trying to protect – have to tobacco, with no questions about age asked.

The Government has said many times that it wants to help small and medium-sized businesses to grow and prosper.

However, plain packaging will mean that I, and many other small retailers, will lose out on sales to criminals, which is not only bad for businesses but bad for communities across the UK.

Navin Patel, Portslade retailer and member of the Tobacco Retailers’ Alliance