The Big Question: What will be the effect of a ban on displaying cigarettes in shops?

Published in The Independent, by Ed Howker

Why are we asking this now?
Yesterday, the Department of Health published a "Consultation on the Future of Tobacco Control" which recommended that cigarette displays at the point of sale in shops should be banned. Instead, packs should be sold from under the counter. The Health Secretary said: "Enticing multi-coloured displays encourage young people to start smoking – we must put a stop to this. Smoking is a habit which is hard to break and causes 87,000 deaths a year in England alone." The consultation, launched in April, was the biggest of its kind and received 96,000 replies.

What will happen next?
A health Bill containing the measure will be introduced early next year. Larger retailers would be forced to comply by October 2011 and small shops by 2013. The Government also wants age restrictions on the use of cigarette vending machines. In order to use the machines, smokers might be required to use tokens, or carry electronic identity cards.

Who is the Government targeting?
Under-age smokers. In 2007, official statistics suggest that almost 200,000 children aged 11 to 15 were regular smokers. A study by the British Heart Foundation estimated that 46,000 children bought cigarettes from vending machines in 2006. However, Simon Clark, the director of the smoking lobby group Forest, has already reacted angrily to the proposals, arguing that they will make life more difficult for all smokers. He says they are "designed to denormalise adults who wish to consume a perfectly legal product".

Will the ban work?
Ireland, Thailand and Iceland have all forced the sale of cigarettes under the counter, with some Australian and Canadian territories following suit. So far, however, evidence that the ban stops young people from smoking is mixed. The Department of Health argues that cigarette displays encourage unplanned purchases, increasing sales by between 12 and 28 per cent. It claims that a ban could reduce smoking among young people by as much as 10 per cent, but this figure does not seem to accurately reflect the experience of Iceland, for example, which introduced similar laws in 2001. There, the number of 15- to 19-year-olds who say they have smoked has remained constant at 30 per cent since 1994 – before the ban began.

What effect will a ban have on shops?
Potentially, rather a bad one. The cigarette trade is worth about £12.7bn a year to the economy, accounting for about 20 per cent of sales in convenience stores, with many other purchases made by customers who enter the shops to get their fixes. Retailers estimate that the cost of reorganising each shop to accommodate the legislation could be between £2,000 and £10,000.

How have shopkeepers reacted to the proposals?
They were angered by the announcement. Stephen Robertson, the director of the British Retail Consortium, said: "This will hit small stores, which lack the space and resources, particularly hard. The Government is right to try to stop children smoking but banning displays in shops is just not the way. It will impose thousands of pounds of pointless refit costs on stores, ultimately met by customers, and create delays and inconvenience for customers and staff.

"We supported last year's increase in the age for buying tobacco to 18 years old. Next April there will be tougher penalties for stores who break that rule. Enforcing existing and new regulations and stopping parents and older peers supplying tobacco to children is the real answer."

Ken Patel, the national spokesman for Responsible Retailers, a division of the Tobacco Retailers Alliance, runs a convenience store in Leicester and feels his business is under threat: "Thirty per cent of my turnover is tobacco sales," he said. "The impact of this law will be significant because it will reduce footfall. Smokers spend more money than any others in my shop. Without these sales I'll go bust."

What else do the retailers object to?
Mr Patel also believes the Government consultation did not include enough minority voices. He said: "Seventy thousand small shops are run by ethnic minorities but the consultation document was written in English. I have reported this to Trevor Philips [head of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights] because I know there were retailers who did not understand the original document and so couldn't put their views across."

Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, has also expressed reservations about the impact of the ban, although the Government and anti-smoking groups state that no small shops have been forced to close as a result of bans in other countries, and point out that the costs to businesses can be minimal if handled correctly.

Who else might be affected?
Duty-free retailers at airport departure lounges are concerned about the potential loss of revenue. During the consultation, they told the health ministry that all their customers have passport or photographic ID, so under-age smokers cannot make purchases in any event. They also warned that if displays were removed, the majority of customers – particularly those who did not speak English – would believe that tobacco was not stocked. Duty-free retailers said their competitors were not domestic retailers but other airports. The ban on tobacco displays would therefore damage their sales.

Do the proposals go far enough?
Anti-tobacco pressure groups such as Action on Smoking (ASH) and Cancer Research UK both want ministers to go further and announce a complete ban on vending machine sales of cigarettes because, they claim, 14 per cent of under-age smokers buy tobacco from them. They point out that 90 per cent of respondents to the Government consultation preferred an outright ban on tobacco vending machines. They describe the current plans as a "half-baked measure" which will do "little or nothing to reduce under-age smoking, while incurring additional costs to vending machine manufacturers".

What other policies could the Government pursue to reduce under-age smoking?
Almost all of the people, 98 per cent, who took part in the Department of Health consultation process felt that the packaging of tobacco products should be plain, denoting nothing more than the brand – rather than complex marketing information. This proposal was dismissed by the Government however, and will not be introduced. Ken Patel, meanwhile, thinks that the emphasis of the Government's proposals is wrong. He said yesterday: "I think the biggest problem is counterfeit tobacco, which is getting out of control. According to HM Revenue and Customs, the Exchequer loses £11m from counterfeit and smuggled tobacco from Europe. Also, there is still no law to prevent adults buying tobacco for children. I cannot refuse them and that's a big problem. I have three women who come in to my shop every day to buy cigarettes for their daughters. Proxy purchasing should be made illegal."

Will under-the-counter tobacco laws stop young people from smoking?
Yes...
* Casual smokers, particularly young ones, are prompted to purchase tobacco products at the point of sale. The ban will remove that temptation.
* The ban prevents tobacco companies from using strong branding to lure customers.
* Similar bans have had success in other countries.

No...
* An effective enforcement of age restrictions could work just as well.
* Results of a ban are mixed. Iceland, which introduced similar laws, has not seen a drop in the number of young people smoking cigarettes.*
* Laws to prevent adults from buying tobacco for young people would be more effective.

* Ed: This erroneous statement has been made frequently by the retail industries. In fact, smoking prevalence among 15 year olds in Iceland fell from 18.6% in 1999 to 13.6% in 2003 and has continued to fall. (The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD).
Available at: www.espad.org/sa/node.asp?node=730)

A similar Q&A appears in The Guardian

Source: The Independent, 10 December 2008
Link: http://tiny.cc/y4OL4

Cancer to surpass heart disease as world's leading killer

By 2010, cancer will be the leading killer in the world, surpassing heart disease, causing more deaths than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Unless new treatments are found, there could be 27 million people with cancer by 2030, and 17 million cancer deaths annually. And, there could be 75 million people living with cancer within five years after diagnosis, according to a new report, 2008 World Cancer Report, released Tuesday by the World Health Organization.

"The burden of cancer is shifting from developed countries to developing nations," Dr. Otis Webb Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said during a teleconference. "And with a growing and aging population, we must take steps to address this problem now."
Last year, there were about 12 million new cases of cancer and 7.6 million cancer deaths reported. Of these, 5.6 million were in developing countries with an estimated 4.7 million cancer deaths.

"The global burden of cancer has more than doubled in the past 30 years," Peter Boyle, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer and co-author of the report, said during the teleconference. "Right now, there are 25 million people alive with cancer five years after diagnosis." Cancer rates are growing in developing countries as people adopt western lifestyles, including smoking, high-fat diets, fast food and less physical activity.

These countries typically don't have the resources to cope with this dramatic increase in cancer. Populations in these countries are expected to grow by 38 percent by 2030. And, these countries will have a high number of older people as populations age, increasing the incidence of cancer.
Smoking is the major avoidable risk for cancer and cancer deaths around the world. Currently, some 1.3 billion people smoke. The true burden of cancers and deaths from smoking are yet to seen. This "smoking epidemic" will be influencing cancer in developing countries for many years, according to the report.

In developing countries, most cancer is attributable to chronic infections. But, 12 percent of the disease is caused by smoking, and that number is growing, according to the report. Cancer cases and cancer deaths are expected to grow 1 percent a year, with the biggest increases in China, Russia and India.

To stem the global tide of increasing cancer rates, the American Cancer Society is recommending several steps, Brawley said. First, vaccines that prevent cancer-causing infections -- such as human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer -- need to be made available to low-income countries. Second, there needs to be greater support for U.S. and international tobacco-control programs. Third, health officials and governments must promote culturally sensitive risk-reduction programs and invest in cancer research and early detection.

Source: healthfinder.gov, 09 December 2008
Link: http://tiny.cc/GNlgz

Duty-free sector targets exemption from UK tobacco display ban

The duty-free industry is to push for an exemption from a ban on the open display of tobacco in England and Wales announced by the UK government yesterday. The government hopes that the removal of cigarette displays in shops will prevent underage access to tobacco and reduce smoking.

The announcement follows a UK Department of Health consultation report on the future of tobacco control earlier this year which attracted 96,000 respondents—the largest response to a consultation of this kind. The responses, published by the Department of Health yesterday, include those from airports, retailers and industry lobbyists. The government is yet to announce any exemptions and has said it will consult with retailers and other industry authorities before drafting the legislation. It has also indicated it will allow sufficient lead-in time before any new law is passed.

The follow-up report said: “Duty-free retailers at airport departure lounges point out that their customers all have passport or photographic ID and believe the purchases of the cartons they stock (200 cigarettes) are not impulse buys. If displays were removed, the majority of customers would believe tobacco was not stocked - particularly those who do not speak English. Since tobacco purchases drive sales this would dramatically reduce sales of these products. Duty-free retailers say that their competitors are not domestic retailers but other airports. The display restrictions would thereby skew sales to competitors in other countries.”

European Travel Retail Council (ETRC) secretary general Keith Spinks - who is coordinating the ETRC campaign to retain duty-free tobacco sales in the European Union and is also supporting global campaigns - said: “The UK travel-retail industry including the UK Travel Retail Forum, Airport Operators Association and most UK airport operators all made submissions to the consultation calling for the status quo to be retained for airport duty-free shops. The argument that had been put forward in the submission was recognised in today’s Department of Health report. We now await formal legislative proposals expected during the first half of 2009 before making further comment.”

Spinks responded to the parts of the report suggesting the main point of the ban is to stop sales of tobacco products to children. “The press statement accompanying the report suggests that the primary focus is on restricting access [to tobacco products] to children and young people. The duty-free industry does not retail tobacco products to minors,” he said.

His words are echoed by industry lobbyist John Hume, who said the duty-free industry has an “unblemished record” in terms of selling tobacco to minors. He said: “The duty-free industry is an age-controlled environment and there has never been a case where a duty-free retailer has sold a tobacco product to a minor. The duty-free industry is different to high streets or supermarkets when there are cases where tobacco products are sold to under age smokers. This should give us a firm platform to lobby the government for an exemption.”

Source: DFNI online, 09 December 2008
Link: http://tiny.cc/cE30h

Fears eased over tobacco displays

Specialist tobacconists could be exempt from new laws banning displays of tobacco in shops, said officials. New laws banning displays in England and Wales were announced by the government on Tuesday. A Devon tobacconist who has more than 2,000 products on display said he feared he would have to work behind a curtain to comply with the law. But a Department of Health spokesperson said it was consulting on the Health Bill and there could be exemptions.

The spokesperson said: "We will need to conduct a further consultation on this matter to minimise any burden on businesses, including specialist tobacconists. What is most important is to protect children and young people from the ubiquitous promotion of smoking through point of sale display."

Martin McGahey, 52, whose traditional tobacconist shop has been on the same site in Exeter since 1880, told BBC News: "That's the mature way to go forward. We already have an exemption to allow smoking of cigars on the premises, so it would make sense to be exempt from a ban on displays."

He said if the shop was included in the new laws then everything would have to be out of sight under the counter. "I would need a counter 8ft (2.4m) tall and 20ft (6.1m) wide for all the tobacco products I have got here. I would have to put up curtains and go backwards and forwards fetching tobacco for customers."

Ministers hope the display ban, included in the Health Bill, will reduce smoking. But Mr McGahey said: "We already have pictorial warnings on packets showing diseased body parts so I cannot understand how not seeing the products will change anything."

Source: BBC News, 09 December 2008
Link: http://tiny.cc/VAAPZ