United Kingdom - Disappointment - cigarette point-of-sale display ban will be weakened..

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November 8, 2010 -

Didn't you know this was coming..UK government could scrap tobacco control plans..

Legislation to block British shopkeepers from openly displaying cigarettes for sale, due to come into force early in the new year, is to be weakened after Conservative/Liberal Democrat ministers accepted that it could harm small businesses and encourage black-market sales of cigarettes.

United Kingdom - Cigarette point-of-sale displays ban must go ahead, say leading doctors..

What's wrong with the Brits.. Just about every physician in the Kingdom insists that smoking should be banned in cars when a child is present and yet the government does not do anything about it.

Wales - Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Jewell we must protect children from second-hand smoke, especially in cars..;

Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners (GPs), has has stated, parents that smoke in front of their children at home at in cars are "committing a form of child abuse." Professor Field, represents 42,000 GPs across the United Kingdom (UK). (United Kingdom - head GP physician calls smoking in front of children "child abuse"..);

Twenty of Britain’s most senior doctors call today for a ban on smoking in cars as part of a sweeping expansion of laws to protect children against the effects of inhaling smoke. (Senior British Doctors demand banning smoking in vehicles when children are present...)

ASH calls for a debate in England on banning smoking in all cars with kids present..

Retailers and tobacco firms have lobbied to persuade the government not to go ahead with the restrictions, included in legislation passed in 2009 by Labour – citing the growth in illegal sales in Ireland since similar legislation was passed there.

Liberal Democrat business secretary Vince Cable’s department is now negotiating changes to the implementation of the Health Act, which could require House of Commons approval, with the department of health, with one ministerial source insisting that there ‘will be a compromise’.

Opponents of the display ban were cheered recently after public health minister Anne Milton told MPs: “The government, in discussions across Whitehall (UK governmental administration), is developing options around the display of tobacco in shops that seek to ensure an appropriate balance between public health priorities and burdens on business.”

Irish black-market sales have jumped since the shop display ban came into force last year, argues Christopher Ogden, chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association. “We believe, as recent evidence in Ireland proves, that organised crime will exploit the display ban,” Mr Ogden said. This “could encourage some smokers to buy from rogue traders prepared to sell more visible illicit product”.

Prime minister David Cameron, who has portrayed himself as an ally of the British pub, is not, however, to repeal the pubs’ smoking ban introduced in 2007, particularly on foot of health research from the department of health, which suggests that the number of heart attacks fell by 10 per cent in the year after the ban’s introduction.

In the Netherlands, the newly-elected coalition government has decided partially to reverse for small pubs a smoking ban introduced in 2008. (Netherlands - smoking ban lifted in small cafes with no staff..)

Meanwhile, there is opposition as well in Spain to a smoking ban in public places due to come into law in January. (A study conducted at Spain's Polytechnic University of Cartagena found that once you factor in health-care and early-death costs of smoking, each pack of cigarettes costs up to $150.)

However, the authorities in Jersey – where lung cancer rates are 30 per cent higher than in England – are to go even further to discourage smoking with ministers there proposing to ban it in cars and public places, as well as outlawing vending machines.
(Jersey and Guernsey - graphic warnings on cigarette packs..)

Meanwhile, a district council in Norfolk in the east of England has said – with the support of unions and management – that workers will have to “clock out” if they are going outside for a cigarette. (Breckland District, Norfolk County, England - eliminates paid smoke breaks..)

Reference: UK law to ban shop cigarette displays faces compromise due to illegal sales, MARK HENNESSY, London Editor, IrishTimes.com, 11/8/2010.