Out Of Sight....

From next year, cigarettes will not be allowed to be displayed in larger stores, with smaller retail outlets having to remove them from public view by 2015. Apparently "out of sight, out of mind" will discourage smokers, new and old. With most smokers already hooked to a particular brand, there would appear to be no point in displaying countless arrays of competing products. If smokers cannot see packets of fags on the shelves when they go shopping, they won't be tempted to buy them when they pop to the supermarket. It is also thought that non-smokers won't be tempted into smoking if they can't see cigarettes on display.

I am not a smoker; I actually hate the filthy, disgusting, cancer inducing habit. But I fail to see how this course of action will work. Smokers are already addicted, they are already loyal to a brand, yes, but how many times do they go shopping purely for the purpose of buying more cigarettes?

Supermarkets do indeed have cigarette counters, but how many times have you, the average shopper going through a 'normal' non-ciggy counter checkout, been held up because a member of staff has had to go and fetch 200 for the customer in front? Not seeing packs of fags isn't going to stop smokers from buying them; a smoker will stop smoking because they want to.

As for tempting new smokers, as mentioned, I am not a smoker, I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. I've also worked on a cigarette counter at my local supermarket as an impressionable 17-18 year old. Was I ever tempted by the many packets stacked up behind me? No. Of course I wasn't. Children and young adults start smoking because of other factors; peer pressure, seeing celebrities, misguided information such as "smoking helps you lose weight" and not because they see them in the corner shop.

"At least there'll be more room for booze....
you what....are Walkers okay? Normal
size? Not grab bags, obviously....."

If the mere sight of a product in a shop is enough to tempt the paying customer, then why do so many people eat an unhealthy diet, despite the aisles of fresh fruit and veg in the local supermarket? Furthermore, where will it stop? Once cigarettes are off the shelves, what next? Alcohol? Chocolate? Crisps?

By all means, educate people and inform them of the risks, but people must be allowed to make their own decisions and take responsibility (or not, as the case may be) for what they put inside their own bodies.