Board recommends total ban on tobacco advertising

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 2

Board recommends total ban on tobacco advertising

By OLIVER RIDDELL in Wellington

A ban on all forms of tobacco advertising has been - recommended by the Toxic Substances Board In a report to the Government. The Minister of Health, Dr Bassett said a package of measures aimed at controlling the promotion of tobacco would be considered soon.

There was likely to be considerable public support for some of the board’s recommendations, and he looked forward to wide public debate while the recommendations were being considered. The board’s chairman, Dr lan Prior, said tobacco would eventually kill more of today’s children in New Zealand than any other substance unless strong measures were taken. Bans on tobacco advertising through television, cinema, radio and roadside bill boards should be extended to all forms of advertising.

The board had recommended that cigarette advertisements in magazines and newspapers cease from July 1987, he said. Point-of-sale advertisements such as signs in dairies, as well as ground signs at televised sponsored events, should be phased out by 1988. That gave enough time for sports bodies to make other, arrangements for sponsorship if necessary. There was no objection to the tobacco industry

making grants for charitable purposes, but Dr Prior said the board wanted a stop to advertising that linked tobacco, in the minds of children, with a healthy activity like sport. The board sought and reviewed submissions from tobacco industry sources and non-smoking groups. It had concluded that the continued multimillion dollar promotion of a toxic substance such as tobacco should cease. Evidence from all 10 specialist Royal medical colleges had been unanimous on the need for stronger health warnings on packets and a complete ban on tobacco promotion, he said.

Persuasive evidence had been given that children were becoming addicted while they were very young and that this destroyed their freedom of choice. Even if children did not smoke, they already knew several cigarette brand names. They saw hundreds of cigarette advertisements before. they first experimented with cigarettes, Dr Prior said. A society in which tobacco was promoted would have helped to protect many children from the tobacco habit. The board recommended that instead of the many advertising signs at shops where tobacco was sold, there should be a single sign near the counter listing the tobacco products,

prices and tar yields.

It also recommended that a health warning notice occupy 20 per cent of the front and back of the packet instead of the present' warning in small print on the side of the packet — which was too small to be noticed. Dr Prior said the board was bound to rule on tobacco because it was mentioned in the Toxic Substances Act Tobacco was addictive and toxic, and in the long run iethal.

Dr Bassett said it was time to begin considering the new measures needed when the voluntary restrictions of 1973 expired in July 1987. It was 24 years since the links between smoking and lung cancer had been proved and the Government saw the need to make progress — particularly to protect young people from taking up the habit.

Some 3600 people in • New Zealand died each year from tobacco-related illnesses, he said. About 3000 hospital admissions each year were directly attributable to tobacco and the taxpayer paid dearly for the habit.

Promotion of non-smok-ing to young people could not prosper while tobacco advertising continued.

After the success of Smoke-free Week, how was the time to begin considering further steps in the campaign to cut down or stop cigarette consumption, Dr Bassett said.