Shops to be banned from displaying tobacco products

[Myriad2112]

For smokers, non-smokers or shopkeeper, I can't see how this useless piece of legislation can benifit anyone. Is this just another example of barking mad big brother propaganda?

[20ParkDrive]

Zeuhl with you being an expert name one other brand of cig that is like Park Drive and i am not talking about a pretty red and white packet.

When i go out i buy my bread because i like the taste not because of the packaging, same with tomato sauce and HP sauce.

Pretty adverts may sell products but if you like a certain brand you will stick with that brand.

If you think i will forget my cigs when they put them under the counter think again.

The only thing i can agree with is that certain brands will lose out on sales to youngsters when they start smoking.

Most people these days buy the cheapest cigs on the shelf go in any local shop and ask what they sell the most of it will not be the high price cigs in a flash packet.

Those days are long gone.

[Sooper]

Well i for one dont think that it will have the desired effect so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it!!

[boxtops]

In Spain, it's been illegal to sell tobacco in the supermarkets for some years, the only place you can buy them is tobacco shops. It doesn't seem to have stopped people buying but it means that these items are not on display publicly other than in these tabacs. Perhaps the same will come here in due course.

[Sooper]

The problem i have with this new vindictive attack, is that it i dont see how it will work. I started smoking as a teenager at school like many others, not because of any branding, advertising etc, that im aware of anyway? I did it because my friends were doing it and people who were older and who i thought were cool were smoking and it was illegal and i was a rebel (or i thought i was anyway!) and i wanted to be a part of that crowd. Plenty of my friends didnt smoke and never have and they werent treated any different.
I cant say as a smoker that i have really even ever paid much attention to smoking products available in the kiosk's or shops or adverts etc over the years. The only adverts i can recall are the cigar ones and thats only as they were very funny
I think if you try to hide the tobacco products it may just have the reverse effect and make it even more appealing and cool. I think it is quite ridiculous to think that because you cant see something clearly that you wont want it or know about it, utter madness again from the anti-smoking nutters again.
I

[cazzz1975]

but back then sooper, smoking did not have the negative connotations that it does now, my teenage daughter thinks smoking looks disgusting and stinks, years ago it was still on tv and still seen as cool, there were no smoking bans and it was not seen as an anti social habit, the new generations opinion of smoking is not the same as ours when we were that age

[mightyWBA]

The tobacco industry won't be bothered about this because their biggest markets are now in the far east.
However huge amounts of revenue will be lost through taxation by discouraging smoking,where will this shortfall be made up?..Probably the motorist.
Also has anybody worked out the saving the NHS will make in the future by not having to treat smoking related diseases, compared with looking after a healthy and longer living population?
It should be a personal choice and children these days are educated in how harmful it is and largely take notice.
I don't smoke and think it will die out in this country one day ,once the hardened generation of smokers have ..errr..gone out in a puff of smoke..
People who want to smoke always will, so this legislation isn't aimed at them.

[mightyWBA]

But Eddie if we all live to be 100 how are all the pensions going to be paid?

[Sooper]

Im not that old Cazz thanks!! The dangers of smoking were well documented when i was young and at school and i remember both the Nicoteen and Natural born smoker campaigns that were run and run whilst i was at school, didnt have the desired effect then and this new campaign wont change things radically either.
Dont get me wrong, i dont want kids to start smoking either but i think that it is pretty naive to think that if you hide the product and change the branding/packaging that this is gonna fix all of the problems, it wont. It may have a small impact but not the desired one.

[cazzz1975]

you will be surprised sooper, just as I am surprised that for something so supposedly insignificant as plain packaging and taking them off display has caused such uproar with smokers.

[Sooper]

I think what angers smokers (well me anyway!) isnt this particular piece of new legislation which i think is ludicrous but the sheer constant attacks on us. It has been relentless now for some years and is getting beyond a joke. Every new law that they have imposed on us over the years we have complied with despite many of them being pointless. An example of this, where i work we have an outside smoking shelter which resembles a bus shelter of sorts with glass panels all the way round and a roof but no door. This was fine and allowed the smokers to go and have a cigarette (in our own time i must add) and be reasonably protected from the elements. This was fine for a few years then some anti-smoking moron decided that this wasnt fine and that the shelter would have to have 50% of its panels (not roof) removed as smoking is bad for you and we might be breathing smoke in!! So we had to comply with this and now have a shelter ( i use the words lightly!) that is pathetic and of no use at all now if it is raining or windy, something quite common to the Uk!
Im sure that the government could use its time and money more wisely and go after other areas such as drink and drugs, both just as devastating but seem to be more tolerated.
There was an interesting debate on Jeremy Vine this Wednesday all about this topic and they had a gentlemen who represents the freedom of UK individuals ( i cant remember his name or exact title) but he wasnt for or against smoking but he did state that this was another purely vindictive attack on smokers and their rights. I couldnt have put it better myself.

[joko]

vindictive? really??

if you think the government would launch a campaign like this 'for spite', then you must be incredibly naive - and paranoid...

[birdie1971]

Zeuhl

[“... The taste and the overall sensation that a particular brand gives you is the reason you chose one brand over another..] - “Ill informed generalisation” - Idiotic response. Sorry to be so blunt, but it is. You are denying that a person makes a choice based on their own preference.

“You've measured that [“I personally know of no one who buys cigarettes based on the perceived 'image' of one brand or another”] scientifically have you?”. - No. As I said, that is my personal opinion. The clue is in my use of the word, “personally”.

“... the most powerful form [of peer pressure] is to match the peer group's brand of choice - and the Anchor for the Brand is the logo and packaging..” - Utterly disagree. The brand is irrelevant when you start smoking.

“When did you last see a smoker without their Branded packet close to hand? Smokers are seldom separated from their defining cigarette Brand.” - Utter nonsense. I don't know what to add to that other than you appear to talking complete rubbish. Are you suggesting that smokers knowingly, actively and overtly display the brand they consume? If so, you are talking complete codswallop.

“No. What is laughable is your confusion between removing prompts and triggers and having smokers 'forget'.” - Your assertion is that people buy products that they are chemically addicted to because they are prompted to do so by visual aids. What you are suggesting is that a person who cannot see cigarettes on display will simply forget that they are chemically addicted to nicotine.

[birdie1971]

Continued...

“Next you'll be trying to tell us that people only prefer branded goods over stores' own label because they have quantified evidence they are better.”

Oh please. Your argument is complete garbage. Hiding products that everyone is aware of will not reduce consumption. Want some evidence? Have a look at prohibition in America in 1920. This lasted for 13 years: no one could legally purchase alcohol in the entire United States. Did this reduce demand for booze? Did people who had previously imbibed suddenly stop? No they did not.

This massive (unintended) social experiment proved one thing categorically - removing a popular product from the shelves does not reduce demand.

[beso]

It is part of a steady process to completely eliminate smoking and all signs of it in public.

I look forward to the day when smoking is banned in public and we no longer have to tolerate the butt litter, the smoke and the fires caused by smokers.

I have nothing against people using drugs but I think it is only fair they do it in private where they don't inflict it upon others.

[DeadEndStreet]

Another bad sleepless night smokers going past coughing and blowing their smoke through my letterbox...... NO
It is weekend so all the drunks go past and wake the street up then next door come in at 4-25am so stuff it might as well have a read or a nosy on the computer .
Bet most of the people on here whingening drink but your drinking never affects anyone else or does it ?

[Craftypig]

I think its rather amusing that people really think hiding cigs will deter children from smoking, banning the advertising in magazines, at bus shelters, on tv and at sports events didn't work and neither will this....Kids dont start smoking because they read an advert in womans weekly or because a cig brand was plastered down the side of a racing car. Kids start smoking to "fit in" to "look cool" or because they think it make them "look big", they might swipe a cig from their parents or other family members. Kids think they are invincible, showing a picture of a nicotine dieseased lung or throat cancer didnt work and never will. Kids experiment with anything and everything they can get their hands on, admittedly not all do and even some of those that do try smoking never take up the habit fulltime. When will people learn that if your trying to get through to kids, banning something or giving it a negative image doesnt work, all they do is glamourise it and make it more appealing. Kids will find away around these ridiculous attempts to deter them from smoking I have lost count of the number of times i get asked to buy cigs for kids stood outside shop doorways, if they cant get them legally there is always a bloke just around the corner selling them foreign ones at half price, the ones that contain higher amounts of nicotine and camel dung etc.........

[Katie~77]

Here's what I don't understand..... If we all gave up smoking, where would the government get their extra cash from? Us smokers may well cost the NHS a lot of money, but it's probably us "dirty" people who are funding it in the first place!
Also.... I've never seen canabis in pretty boxes behind a counter but I know for a fact that there are a lot of teenagers in this country puffing away on it!