Direct cigarette advertising

[Advent]

Hi to all, my first post, sorry its a moan.

I love Stafford and love shopping in stafford and I am a resident of Staffordshire.

Well I did love shopping in stafford until I went in today.

Went into the indoor shopping mall with my young daughter and came across the most direct Cigarette advertising and promotion I have ever seen. Yes I know they are electric cigarettes, but the huge cigarettes look like normal cigarette and they really don't do anything to reduce the glamorisation of cigarettes to children.

Maybe it's not illegal but I am completely shocked and disgusted that huge cigarettes have been permitted in a mall with a significant number of children walking past.

Maybe they could have a more discrete stall but one thing, please remove the huge cigarettes!!

I will also be making a complaint to the mall management and town officials.

I won't be walking through or using any of the shops in the mall until this stall is gone. I really don't want my children exposed to this, it is so in your face.........

 

[basil]

Welcome to the forum, all comment is up for grabs so no need to apologise. With regard to your observation of the marketing above I'm in agreement it is a thing of the past or should be ..
........

 

[Withnail]

... please remove the huge cigarettes!!

I am in agreement with basil's agreement with you - how wrong does that look?

Post up a who-to-moan-to link and i will happily join in with the moaning.


* pops out for cigarette *

 

[Gramaisc]

Post up a who-to-moan-to link and i will happily join in with the moaning.

I would imagine that this might be somewhere to start - info@guildhallstafford.com .

http://www.guildhallstafford.com/contact.php

Action on Smoking and Health might also be interested - enquiries@ash.org.uk

http://www.ash.org.uk/about-ash/contact-us

 

[Withnail]

I would imagine that this might be somewhere to start - info@guildhallstafford.com .

Moan dispatched.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Good first post there.

Whilst in one sense I totally agree with your comments, I also can see the other side of the coin as it could even encourage young (existing) smokers to smoke something more healthy.
Personally, I would explain to my children that it's a stall about "giving up smoking" and depending on the age of the children give them a harsh chat about smoking facts and explain why an electronic cigarette has been invented.

It's a tough one. I'm a smoker so don't really have much right to comment, but I do see your point. I didn't really think of it being a problem until I looked at your pictures - and I agree it doesn't look good. Whilst I personally wouldn't like to see the stall removed, I agree that there is no need for the huge cigarettes on poles!!

On another note, it is all going to change in 2014 or 2015 (can't remember which), as a new law is being brought in to prevent the sale of "e-liquids" conntaining higher levels of nicotine. As far as I'm aware, it is being passed onto the pharmaceuticals to be responsible for which will seriously hike up the cost of smoking e-cigs to a point where it could be more expensive than smoking real cigs! Not a good move. At the moment, e-liquids are widely available online in various strengths and it can be ridiculously cheap to e-smoke. This is another encouragement for people to try it instead of smoking real cigs. It just goes to prove that the government are worried about the financial loss of too many people giving up smoking, that they need to ensure they make revenue from e-cig smokers too.

 

[Spelunker]

It would seem that because they are not selling tobacco they can circumvent the tobacco advertising laws. I agree with WRM that e cigarettes are the lesser evil but in this kind of advertising sells cigarettes.
Moan dispatched.

 

[Advent]

Also these electric cigarettes should only be smoked outside, similar to real cigarettes. I don't want to see an activity that is seen as socially unacceptable being normalised by using these realistic looking electric cigarettes being used indoors.

My children cannot tell the difference between a real cigarette and an electric one when someone sitting next to you in a cafe puffing on them.

 

[shoes]

Teenagers will smoke (some of them) and nothing our government does to deter them will work, short of banning cigarettes all together.

Having recently switched from 20 a day to an e-cig I can recommend them to anyone wanting to come off the cigs (ok, so it doesn't tackle the core addiction but I feel so much better for it, and saving on average six pounds a day - do the math).

If vaping can be seen to be cool it might offer a healthier alternative to real smoking for people starting out (who are going to smoke anyway, don't forget). I think we need to market e-cigs in as positive a light as possible for the time being, see if we can prevent a few young smokers from taking up the richmond superkings and then look at getting people off the e-cigs in time.

 

[shoes]

Also these electric cigarettes should only be smoked outside, similar to real cigarettes. I don't want to see an activity that is seen as socially unacceptable being normalised by using these realistic looking electric cigarettes being used indoors.

My children cannot tell the difference between a real cigarette and an electric one when someone sitting next to you in a cafe puffing on them.

What about in private, child free environments though - would you have an issue, for example, with me sitting at my desk, in my (own) office, puffing away on my e-cig?

I understand your point and agree that we should perhaps encourage ecig users to use discression around children/young adults.

On another note, however, the e-cigs advertised there do look like cigarettes, whereas there are many better solutions available now which look nothing like e-cigarettes, are cheaper to run and better to 'smoke'. I'm researching which one to buy at the moment, but they all look similar to this and are to be held in the way you'd hold a pointing rod rather than between the fingers like a cigarette:

 

[wmrcomputers]

They are the kind I use shoes - but buy from Liberty Flights if you want the quality ones (there are so many fakes around)

I have to agree with Shoes as well about the positive effect of e-cig advertising, and for better or worse if a kid is going to smoke they'll do it regardless of advertising / how you raise them etc. Their real cig advert happens daily - whether at school, on the way, down the park or wherever! My eldest 2 smoke. Thankfully they now both smoke e-cigs which I wish had been around when they started smoking!

Another way to think of it... If they want to try it they're going to. Fact! Kids love geeky stuff. If they are gonna smoke then they will want it to be cheap and geeky is a bonus too. If we dont make them aware of e-cigs then just maybe they'll whack a real one in the gob - 4000+ harmful chemicals that kill!! An e-cig contains just nicotine. Yes it's addictive BUT there is no proof to date to suggest it is harmful at all. Smokers get hooked on nicotine but kill themselves with the chemicals they aren't addicted too.

A final thought too. I know 2 adult (30's) females who were both raised well. Non smoking parents, good schools (one private), and both well educated about the harm smoking causes. They both smoke, have done since being around 15 and somehow manage to hide it from their parents to this very day. I also know smoking adults with kids that they were really open with and said that they would never go mad if they wanted to smoke as it would be hypocritical, Despite being given a "free pass" to smoke at a young age, neither of their kids have ever even tried it - now at the age of 28 and 30.

 

[Withnail]

Yes but... look at them -

- do you really think they are appropriate in a shopping centre? Yes people will start smoking regardless but it shouldn't be actively promoted in any form at all.

Are they still there?

 

[wmrcomputers]

I kinda get your point and to a degree I agree. However you just said it yourself - people will start smoking regardless. Surely it therefore makes sense to make people aware that there are much healthier alternatives?
I do agree though that this "size" of advertisment in a shopping centre isn't called for

 

[Perrier]

i used that very stall the other day to buy my first e-cig.
got to agree , those large cigs look to much like the real thing making you wonder what they are actually trying to promote.

im a 20+ a day smoker and im on my second day using these.
im finding im getting that instant nicotine hit, but theres still something missing.
maybe im also addicted to some of the other poisons and need to flush them out of my system first and then maybe it'll improve ( for want of a better word).
ive got to admit though, without using these i wouldnt have managed to get through 1 day , never mind 2.

 

[Withnail]

... those large cigs look to much like the real thing making you wonder what they are actually trying to promote.

Was thinking about this on Wednesday coz it woz the first time i'd been in there for an age - my first contact with the Guildhall wallahs was to say that i would not return until they were removed.

Using the Guildhall as a convenient passage between here and there, i noticed that they are very much still there. True to my warning, i have not been into the Guildhall as a 'shopper' since - which is a bit of a pisser seeing as i quite often pick up some unusual books in the Poundland place there.

I never received a reply to my initial missive.

 

[United57]

I agree with the appropriateness and I believe the government are looking in to the e cig issue. What I would say is I have even seen more disturbing sites in Stafford. A pregnant woman walking up the High St smoking or the man walking in to town with his son ( 9 or 10 ish ) drinking a can of special brew.

The bright spot last week was the PCSO throwing out 2 drunks from the park topped off by the bald headed drunk 6.30 PM walking towards the station. 2 steps forward followed by one back. I need to get a camera in my car.

 

[tek-monkey]

6:30? Amateurs! Last time we got to vote for our new Lizard I saw people wandering around with cans at 7:30am, although that could be more indicative of the area I live in!

 

[littleme]

6:30? Amateurs! Last time we got to vote for our new Lizard I saw people wandering around with cans at 7:30am, although that could be more indicative of the area I live in!

Hahaha, maybe its the same one that wanders past my house at 7.30am with his can of Stella in his hand, arm outstretched & with a weird falling forward half walk/half run...a bit like a donkey following a carrot!

I gave up using Champix (tablets - ask your Dr for them), but I was a bit shocked when I saw someone vaping indoors somewhere....guess we've all got used to only seeing smokers in small clumps outside buildings.
I don't see why this stall in the guildhall is so offensive to people though...I'm of the same ilk as WRM Computers, would explain that they're for people trying to give up smoking...I can't see that its in anyway attractive to kids, if they're going to smoke they will do - regardless of advertising or packaging, & most likely because their mates smoke.

 

[Withnail]

It isn't that it is 'attractive' - it is the normalising nature of them that is the problem as far as i'm concerned.

They do not, of themselves, 'explain' that they are for people to give up smoking - they are just massive cigarettes in the middle of a shopping mall looking like cigarettes.

Which is, apparently, perfectly 'normal'.

 

[John Marwood]

Do you think that in say, 30 years time, we ( that survive the great fog ) will be tutting at bars, pubs and shops selling booze?

I do realise, however, that the corn oil lobby is too great to be defeated by anything