Our guest writer is Tom Yates, a working NHS doctor
Last month, health minister Andrew Lansley said his Department would “tell Parliament in due course” whether it intends to implement measures, contained in the 2009 Health Act, banning cigarette vending machines and point of sale advertising of cigarettes. This was hardly re-assurring.
In the UK, cigarettes cause much more premature mortality than obesity or alcohol. One in two smokers will die from their habit. The poor smoke more than the rich and cigarettes are a major reason why poor men, across the developed world, are twice as likely to die in middle age (35-69) than rich men. In England and Wales, differences in rates of smoking explain 59 per cent of this excess risk.
Limiting children’s access to cigarettes is important – 40 per cent of adult smokers started smoking before the age of 16. The coalition have not yet committed to implementing the part of the Health Act that bans cigarette vending machines, a key measure to control child smoking.
Whilst only one in 100 cigarettes are bought from vending machines, one in eight regular smokers aged eleven to fifteen access their cigarettes in this way.
Bans on tobacco advertising reduce cigarette consumption and, given the large numbers of deaths attributable to smoking, even small decreases in consumption lead to significant falls in mortality. However, to be effective they need to leave tobacco companies no loopholes – no Camel Boots or Marlboro Classic Clothing.A comprehensive World Bank review concluded:
“Policymakers who are interested in controlling tobacco need to know whether cigarette advertising and promotion affect consumption. The answer is that they almost certainly do, although the data are not straight forward.
“The key conclusion is that bans on advertising and promotion prove effective, but only if they are comprehensive, covering all media and all uses of brand names and logos.”
Tobacco companies responded to the 2002 Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act, which banned most forms of cigarette advertising, by producing new variants of existing brands, thereby increasing the impact and size of point of sale displays. If implemented in full, the 2009 Health Act will put a stop to large backlit point of sale displays, moving all cigarettes below the counter.
The tobacco industry and shop keepers are protesting loudly but their concerns about rises in tobacco smuggling and small retailers going out of business ignore the bigger picture.
Richard Peto argues that progress in reducing premature mortality is mostly made though small victories against major killers. He is right and the time to act is now.
41 Responses to “Limiting child access to cigarettes – Coalition must enforce health act”
Dave Atherton
Tom Yates exhibits the worst kind of Marxist Self Consciousness. All people like Yates do is make the “forbidden fruit” of tobacco to teenagers more attractive. The net effect of display ban in some provinces of Canada was to increase teenage smoking, increase smuggling, (Canada’s black market is now 25% of sales) and 15% of convenience stores closed. Fail, fail, fail!
http://blog.iea.org.uk/?tag=patrick-basham
Belinda
One in eight children chooses to buy 16 cigarettes for the price of 24? Pull the other one.
merthyr_bill
@Tom
A majority of people want to lose weight and many want to run a marathon or climb everest. doesn’t mean they are unhappy.
you claim ‘beer is not habit forming’!!! pull the other one!
Left Off
Welcome Dave
Sources and context matter here on LFF so are you the same Dave Atherton of the right wing “progessive”-conservativ website? http://progressive-conservatives.org/web/pages/executive.php And would that be the same Patrick Basham of the tobacco industry funded neocon think tank the Cato Insititute?
Left Footers might rather trust the Canadian Government for statistics on Canadian youth smoking. They don’t line up with Dave’s analysis. They say, “the prevalence of youth who reported that they had never tried smoking remained unchanged”, but then, as the biggest provinces have only rid themselves of tobacco displays in the last year or so, it is bound to take some time to see the benefits http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/tobac-tabac/research-recherche/stat/_survey-sondage_2008-2009/result-eng.php
So Dave, can you explain why Philip Morris say smuggling has fallen in Canada in the last year? They say that Canadian governemnt action against smugglers has increased the legal market by 20%.
Belinda
You’ve just answered your own question, haven’t you? Government action against smugglers. I don’t think anyone is arguing that Government shouldn’t take action on smugglers. It doesn’t follow that the people who want to trade illegally won’t take advantage of every restriction placed in the way of legal traders. And they don’t have to check children’s ages either.