YOUNG people would be less likely to smoke if cigarettes were tinted green and had “smoking kills” written on them, according to a cancer charity.

Scotland has the highest proportion of young smokers in Britain with over one in five hooked on the habit, compared to around one in six across Great Britain.

According to a survey by Cancer Research UK, this could be tackled by manufacturing cigarettes in more unpalatable colours and placing health warnings on each stick,

However, smokers’ rights group Forest said further “scaremongering” will not work, and would merely highlight “the failure of existing policies”.

Smoking rates have declined in Scotland from 31 per cent of all adults in 2003 to 21 per cent in 2016. In England, they have fallen from more than 26 per cent to less than 16 per cent during the same period, according to official figures.

The numbers could be brought down further with a health warning on the side of each cigarette, a survey of 1000 people aged 16-24 suggests.

Young people were around three times less likely to want to try cigarettes with “smoking kills” written on them than standard cigarettes, and those who smoke already were the most likely to be put off by the change. Green cigarettes were also seen as less tempting than standard cigarettes, the survey found.

Cancer Research UK says smoking is the biggest preventable cause of cancer in the UK and the leading cause of preventable death.

Dr Crawford Moodie, a Cancer Research UK-funded scientist, said: “The study shows how cigarettes can be an important communication tool and that altering their appearance, with a health warning or an unappealing colour, can make them less desirable.

“Young people who start smoking are likely to continue to do so into adulthood, Anything that might deter them could help to tackle the potential health repercussions in later life.”

George Butterworth, Cancer Research UK’s senior policy manager, said: “Too many young people are still taking up smoking in the UK. Government anti-smoking campaigns and tax rises on cigarettes remain the most effective methods to stop young people starting.

“We need to continue to explore innovative ways to turn young people off cigarettes to ensure that youth smoking rates continue to drop. This study shows that tactics like making the cigarettes themselves unappealing could be an effective way of doing this.”

Simon Clark, director of Forest, which campaigns against tobacco control activity said: “We were told graphic health warnings and plain packaging would make cigarettes less desirable but there’s no evidence that either policy actually works. Printing a warning on the cigarette or changing the colour of the stick will achieve nothing other than highlight the failure of existing policies.

“Clumsy and heavy-handed state interventions that rely on scare- mongering invariably fail because the health risks of smoking are already well known to teenagers and adults.

“If the Government wants fewer people to smoke the solution is not to impose more regulations on cig-arettes but to encourage existing smokers to switch voluntarily to products such as e-cigarettes that provide a safer yet pleasurable alternative.

“Smokers need a carrot approach, not a stick with yet another warning they will almost certainly ignore.”