KEY POINTS:
I was reading old tobacco industry documents, and some of the comments made by tobacco companies over the years read like Tom Clancy suspense novels.
Thought I'd share one of the very interesting comments I came across. The New Zealand marketing director for Rothmans New Zealand said this in 1999: "You can't sell if the consumer can't see the cigarettes because they are kept behind a perspex glare ... You wouldn't sell baked beans that way, so why sell cigarettes like that?
"Basic retailing principles hold that the product must be visible or it won't sell."
Research shows us retail displays of cigarettes, which the tobacco companies call "their powerwall" increase average tobacco sales by 12-28 per cent. They are a causative factor in the decision to smoke, especially for children and people trying to quit.
The powerwall is the huge wall of cigarettes you see whenever you enter any corner dairy, supermarket or petrol station.
While the sale of other dangerous products such as guns, pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals are highly regulated, cigarettes remain easily accessible and are openly advertised to the public, including our children, through this powerwall.
It's little wonder that a New Zealand study found 44 per cent of this country's youth bought their cigarettes from shops.
Recently I interviewed several teenagers at a rock festival as part of an ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) community programme. The most common places where teenagers bought tobacco were dairies and service stations.
We need to protect our children from this lethal addiction at all costs.
One teenager said, "You keep telling us not to smoke, but we see cigarettes everywhere."
The high visibility of tobacco products in our shops sends mixed messages to our kids and teenagers.
Cigarette displays are a particular issue for children. Research shows displays "normalise" cigarettes for them and trigger impulse purchases by what the industry calls "learner smokers" - our children.
Cigarette displays in dairies and supermarkets are advertising and marketing designed to attract our children to take up smoking and it must stop.
It is vital to remove these from behind the counter and put them under the counter.
ASH, the Cancer Society and other supporting organisations are calling for this change, simply because what is out of sight, is out of mind.
Recent research shows 66 per cent of adult New Zealanders support a total ban on the visual display of cigarettes so we have a public mandate for this ban. The evidence is convincing that partial bans don't work.
Around 23 per cent of New Zealanders smoke. The rate is declining at only 0.1 per cent to 0.2 per cent annually, according to Ministry of Health statistics.
This slow decline in smoking rates reinforces the need to further control cigarette marketing. And cigarette displays equate to active marketing.
The 1990 Smoke-free Environments Act says tobacco advertising is pretty much anything used "to encourage the use, notify the availability or promote the sale of any tobacco product or to promote smoking". Cigarette displays do exactly that.
Tobacco industry documents from the 1960s show tobacco companies knew then that nicotine addiction was the main reason people continue smoking.
A lawyer for Brown & Williamson said: "Nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug."
A ban on point-of-sale cigarette displays would remove an important marketing device used by tobacco companies to sell cigarettes to our kids and teenagers and ASH will advocate for this to be implemented as soon as possible.
Let's bring down the powerwall together.
* Sneha Paul is director of communications for ASH (Action on Smoking and Health)
