14 DAY TRIAL // New legislation, proposed on Tuesday by British Health Secretary Alan Johnson, will put and end to shop window display of cigarettes and tobacco products, in a move aimed at reducing the number of young people picking up smoking in the UK yearly. According to official estimates, some 200,000 kids, between the ages of 11 and 15, are regular smokers, a number that authorities say is unacceptable.
”Enticing multi-colored displays encourage young people to start smoking – we must put a stop to this,” the officials says. Several other methods of curbing the frightening statistics were also considered for the “job,” including raising the legal age for purchasing tobacco products from 16 to 18 and replacing the cash-operated tobacco vending machines with token-operated ones, which can only be operated with special coins, sold by shop staff when valid proof of age is presented.
Similar systems are already implemented in Spain and Ireland, and the effects are beneficial. Reports say that 1 in 5 children under the age of 16 gets his or her cigarettes from such a vending machine, where there are currently no filters to establish the buyer's age. Since 2002, all ads on TV stations have been banned, but the move doesn't seem to be having too much effect on the British youth, which seems to pick up smoking at the same rates as before.
On the flip side, grocers and small retailers say that tobacco products make up for about a third of their income and that further regulation in this area will bring their businesses to bankruptcy, especially under the new developing economic crisis. In most European countries, tobacco sales often provide a very large percentage of the total sales of a small shop, mostly because such shops are very widespread, and people use them in order to buy small things every day, on their way to work.
Before the new legislation is set in place, government officials announced that they would consult with representatives of the industry and of the retailers, so as to come to a common ground on the matter. They added that, even if the measure affected sellers, they would have “sufficient” time to adapt to the new rules, before they took full effect.