Under the Counter Cigarettes - Bad for consumers in its present form

renegade

I am pleased that this new law will not affect me, I have stopped smoking Fags and discovered vaping, cheaper no damage to health, no 2nd hand smoke, cleaner and you still get the buzz.:j

fluffnutter

libra10 wrote: »

Hopefully Tesco (and other stores) will display prices prominently and allow customers to compare prices.

It's all about brand loyalty with cigarettes. People who smoke won't stand there comparing prices! They'll just say '20 Bensons please' (or whatever) because this is what they've been saying for the past 30 years.

The idea that consumers are disadvantaged because they can't compare fag prices is nonsense.

fluffnutter

anatomical wrote: »

I think with the amount of information out there on the side effects of smoking anything that discourages it is a positive. I accept that people have free will and choose to smoke, but if the health warnings, tv adverts and general knowledge of the public aren't enough to discourage people then maybe a bit of inconvenience will.

Having seen and studied the effects of smoking throughout the course of my degree, anything that discourages smoking is a good thing. While parliament generally won't do anything to discourage the consumer, the amount of money spent in healthcare because of smoking far outweighs the amount of tax the government gets from the sale of cigarettes. One in five deaths in the UK are caused by smoking, I think it would irresponsible of the government not to introduce more measures like this.

For those saying alcohol/fatty foods etc. should also be locked away, maybe they will be in future. At the moment there is research to suggest that drinking a sensible amount of alcohol can actually decrease your chances of getting certain illnesses, as with most things it is drinking to excess that causes problems. Cigarettes have no positive effects so it is more important to discourage smoking than drinking alcohol at the present.

I'm not sure this is the case. At present, the figures are about neutral, i.e. the tax on cigarettes equals the amount spent on healthcare once you factor in the fact that smokers die at a younger age and are therefore less of a burden in terms of pension, social support, diseases of the elderly etc.

I entirely agree with your sentiment though.

breesey24

fluffnutter wrote: »

It's all about brand loyalty with cigarettes. People who smoke won't stand there comparing prices! They'll just say '20 Bensons please' (or whatever) because this is what they've been saying for the past 30 years.

The idea that consumers are disadvantaged because they can't compare fag prices is nonsense.

I see where you are coming from but I'd been smoking the same brand for over 10 years but have now changed because they are 50p a pack cheaper. I don't know why the Government doesn't adopt the same idea as they do in Spain - you can only buy tobacco products from tobacconists which have set opening hours. Therefore if you run out of cigarettes at 10 o'clock at night - no nipping out to the local corner shop you've got to wait till the next morning!!

Kay_Peel

custardy wrote: »

As needing to see the cigarettes. I thought most smokers stuck to a brand they like?

I suspect that this is the assumption made by Parliament. I can only tell you about the elderly man who sent me out on this 'factfinding mission': he shops around for the cheapest or special offers and he has no brand loyalty whatsoever. (Like a lot of us, he shops at Lidls and Aldi and he switches energy suppliers regularly too.) Make no mistake - there is a great deal of competition on cigarettes between supermarkets.

Leaving aside the good intentions of the Under the Counter law, the erosion of consumers' rights makes me feel uncomfortable - so I'm heartened to hear that Asda prints a price-list and that shop assistants can actually open the doors to look at the prices without breaking the law.

Incidentally, I went into the same Tescos yesterday. The cigarette and lottery counter is right next to the door. The queues stretched from the door and snaked along past the checkouts. A security guard directed the queue so that it didn't interfere with shoppers, but talk about drawing attention to the sales of cigarettes!

So here's another suggestion for Tescos:

Instead of putting the counter at brightly lit entrances near the flowers, stick it out of sight of young people in the back of the store near the booze.

marleyboy

I had to see it to believe it. I am waiting now for chocolates and alcohol to be hidden behind closed doors with no price tags or brightly coloured wrappers to compare with. In the interests of good healthy living of course.

custardy

marleyboy wrote: »

I had to see it to believe it. I am waiting now for chocolates and alcohol to be hidden behind closed doors with no price tags or brightly coloured wrappers to compare with. In the interests of good healthy living of course.

no problem for me on any of them
raise the tax and offer cuts to the cost of real food

marleyboy

I somehow doubt it will cut the costs of real food, what they take with the one hand, they take with the other.

Storck

At work we have been told we will only have a set amount of time that the door can be open, 20 seconds, not sure if it is true or not.

Baggieboy_2

Another ex-smoker here after discovering vaping. Cheaper, healthier and legal indoors. Won't be long till the government gets its claws into this too. Would love to ask them why not just make smoking illegal if its so bad for you. Of-course they won't admit the real answer - tax from tobacco products far ouweighs the cost of treating the effects of it.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cigarette_tax_receipts_v_cost_of