Making Fags A Drag

We're all used to seeing the rainbow of cigarette packets above the tills at our local supermarkets and service stations. What 'quitter' hasn't been tempted by the shiny boxes as we resentfully purchase petrol and mints?

As a newly quit smoker (okay it's only been five days but it's going well, I promise), I for one welcome the lack of temptation that a new ban on cigarette displays will bring. But how fair is it? Should we, as 'law-abiding consumers' (Forest, smokers group), be forced to buy 'under the counter' if we exercise our right to choose to smoke? Having already been banned from bars, restaurants and public areas, shouldn't smokers at least be able to buy cigarettes without persecution?

I don't think so, no.

One fifth of adults smoke and this number is in steady decline due to anti-smoking measures. The process is working. Not displaying cigarette cartons will bring down the numbers of new smokers and young or 'child' smokers. This in turn will reduce not only lung cancer but diseases as varied as acute myeloid leukemia and cancers of the cervix, kidney, pancreas and stomach; abdominal aortic aneurysm, cataracts, periodontitis and pneumonia.

With NHS reform going ahead apace due to the sheer financial impossibility of the old system and spiralling costs, anything that brings down the massive number of smoking related cases should be applauded. If we wish to retain our right to a health service, surely we have to prove our eagerness for 'health' itself?

Of course not everyone shares my view. Philip Davies, Tory backbencher, was quoted as calling the plans "gesture politics of the worst kind" and a "triumph for the nanny state". Outcry has arisen amongst the tobacco industry groups, many of whom reacted with anger. The Tobacco Manufacturers Association said there was "no credible evidence" it would work. The National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN) has even called the ban on displays a "betrayal of our nation of shopkeepers". This reaction is more understandable when you consider that the average cost of compliance is expected to be £300 per store.

It's a tough one to call- personal choice and shopkeeper's rights versus our responsibility to our own health and to our healthcare system.

But I for one will welcome the space where those packets used to be. No just because it might take away a little of the temptation, but because we can't have our cake and eat it. Perpetuating a national habit which costs the NHS an estimated £2.7bn per year, whilst complaining about health system shake ups which will give GPs control of 80% of the national health budget would be sheer hypocrisy.