Through the HOOP
Hands Off Our Packs (HOOP), the FOREST-funded campaign group, proudly announced last week (August 10) that over 235,000 people had signed its petition against proposals to make tobacco manufacturers use plain packaging for their products. What a coup for these doughty defenders of our freedom to sacrifice health for the sake of tobacco shareholders. Were it not for the sad fact that over 100,000 people die in the UK each year from smoking-related illnesses the list of signatories might have been even longer.
Prominent amongst the supporters of branded tobacco packaging is lobby group The National Federation of Retail Newsagents, whose objections to plain packaging include the danger that market share in this poisonous filth will be lost to counterfeiters and street traders. They add that plain packaging will double the time taken to sell a packet of fags. Imagine lengthening queues becoming restive in newsagents up and down the land as they witness exchanges like this:
‘20 of those ones please’
‘What, these ones?’
‘No those ones next to them’
These ones?’
No those ones’ etc.
You can see why they are worried.
I’m not sure if my local Tesco Express is a member of the NFRN but if so it needs to get on message. I noticed recently when fumbling for my ClubCard that the cigarette display behind the counter has been revamped with deeper shelf-edging. There’s no branding on these shelf-edging strips – they are plain white (except for the price flashes) and they cut off a good deal of the visible packaging. Is this the thin(ish) edge of plain packaging unilaterally imposed by busybody retailers?
Actually, no. For you see, not only do the new shelf edge strips ensure that the packets don’t fall off the display, they also obscure the health messages which appear by government decree on the lower parts of the packet fronts to deter potential smokers and remind current addicts of the risks they are running (thus encouraging them to stop). Evidence, should you require it, of the resolve of Big Tobacco and its minions to foil democratically-determined marketing regulation aimed at improving the nation’s health.
