Posted on 11/22/2006 11:47:02 PM PST by MadIvan
* Ministers back rise in legal age for tobacco purchase from 16 to 18 * Recommendations come from report commissioned by the Executive * Author also warns that strict regulation and heavy fines are also required
Key quote
"We have a product that we know is addictive and pretty poisonous, but the laws around it are based on when we thought it was harmless." - DR LAWRENCE GRUER
Story in full SCOTLAND is to introduce some of the toughest anti-smoking laws in the world, after ministers backed raising the legal age of buying cigarettes from 16 to 18.
The move follows a report commissioned by the Executive that also recommends a ban on displaying cigarettes in shops, urging parents not to smoke in front of children and research into outlawing packs of ten.
Most of the recommendations are still under consideration, but the Executive decided to act immediately on the age limit. Doctors welcomed the move, but there was concern about how police will stop underage people buying cigarettes and accusations that Scotland is turning into a "puritanical state" where adults are not free to make choices.
Just seven months ago, smoking was banned in enclosed public places, and the new measures represent a further step in Jack McConnell's crusade against ill-health.
Ministers have powers to raise the age limit in the legislation to ban smoking in public places, but consultation will have to take place and regulations drawn up.
A spokesman said: "The Executive will begin the preparatory steps for implementing this recommendation, which will be subject to consultation, especially with young people's organisations, including the Scottish Youth Parliament." It was not clear whether this could be done ahead of May's Holyrood elections.
Dr Laurence Gruer, author of the report, welcomed the decision to raise the age limit. He said: "We have a product that we know is addictive and pretty poisonous, but the laws around it are based on when we thought it was harmless."
But he warned that regulations must be put in place to back up the law, including the use of proof of age, test-purchasing to catch retailers out and heavy fines.
In his report, Dr Gruer, director of public health science at NHS Health Scotland, said the Executive could go even further. One of the strictest proposed measures is to ban the display of cigarettes, replacing them with a list of brands and prices - a move that will go further than almost any other country in the world.
Dr Gruer also urged the Executive to ask Westminster to increase the price of cigarettes above inflation and to crack down on tobacco smuggling.
Maureen Moore, chief executive of ASH Scotland, pointed out that at 13 about 5 per cent of boys and 7 per cent of girls smoke, rising to a quarter of girls and 15 per cent of boys at 15.
"It is vital action is taken to help young people say no to an addiction that will kill one in two long-term smokers," she said.
Dr Andrew Buist, deputy chairman of the BMA's Scottish general practitioners' committee, urged the Executive to take on all the recommendations.
However, Neil Rafferty, of the lobby group Forest, said Scotland now had some of the strictest anti-smoking laws in the world except for Bhutan - where tobacco is illegal - and certain American states.
He said: "Scotland is one of the most puritanical societies in the western world. The government is determined to take away people's freedom of choice."
But Chris Ogden, director of the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association, said: "We do not have an issue with it.
"Children should not smoke, and we will do everything we can to help retailers refuse sales."
Key recommendations
• Set targets to cut percentage of boys and girls smoking between the age of 13 and 15.
• Set targets to cut percentage of boys and girls smoking between 16 and 24.
• Ensure greater efforts are made to enforce the prevailing legal age of purchase, including heavy fines for any shops that sell to children.
• Introduce a scheme so that vendors who repeatedly sell cigarettes to under-age customers can be prohibited from selling tobacco products.
• Raise the legal age for buying cigarettes to 18.
• Urge the UK government annually to increase the price of tobacco products at a rate faster than inflation.
• Ask the UK government to reconsider the sale of packs of ten cigarettes, because more young people buy the cheaper packs.
• Ensure Customs and Excise and the police in Scotland put a high priority on activities aimed at reducing tobacco smuggling.
• Urge the UK government to maintain and, if necessary, increase the investment in staff and equipment needed to control tobacco smuggling.
• Urge the UK government to review the current limits on importing cigarettes from other EU countries for personal use and the effectiveness of the controls in place.
• Urge the UK government to work with the EC to stop tobacco smuggling.
• Reinforce the UK government's intention to require graphic photographs of smoking-related diseases to be displayed on cigarette packets.
• Together with the UK government and other devolved administrations, look at ways to reduce positive images of smoking in the media.
• Prohibit the display of cigarettes at the point of sale, to be replaced by a simple list of the brands and their prices.
• A media campaign should be designed and implemented to discourage smoking by young people of any age.
• Improve education on tobacco, alcohol and other drugs in Scottish schools.
• Involve parents more in teaching about the dangers of tobacco.
• Parents should be encouraged by midwives, health visitors, GPs and hospital doctors, nursery staff and teachers not to smoke when children are present.
• Make all schools smoke-free zones.
• All schools should help children who smoke.
Any country that has roadkill (haggis) as a 'National Dish' has no room to be bitching about smoking.
Thanks for the Ping
The Scotsman is a great newspaper online
Click onto the article...the message threads there are great.
'Any country that has roadkill (haggis) as a 'National Dish' has no room to be bitching about smoking.'
Any country whose national dish is a Big Mac has no room to bitch about haggis. . . . . . ;-)
>roadkill?> I thought haggis was oatmeal?
Which freedom do you mean - the smokers freedom from non-smokers or the non-smokers freedom from smoke?
Welcome aboard. If you continue to take on the in-your-face smokers, guaranteed, you will be called every name in the book. They're just blowin' smoke.
True, but Apple Pie is America's National Dish.
"addictive and pretty poisonous"
Is that anything like pretty pregnant?
'Welcome aboard. If you continue to take on the in-your-face smokers, guaranteed, you will be called every name in the book. They're just blowin' smoke.'
I understand and forgive them. They are junkies and addiction makes people do and say unreasonable things and act in selfish ways. Jesus was a non-smoker and that's good enough forme. ;-)
From the ingredients I found, it's roadkill..
Yummy! Can I have seconds?
'>roadkill?> I thought haggis was oatmeal?'
No, haggis is the 'pluck' of a sheep or lamb, ie the lungs, liver and heart, minced up and seasoned and cooked in the sheeps stomach lining. Pretty much the same ingredients as a big mac then, minus the mechanically recovered meat slurry! :)
'True, but Apple Pie is America's National Dish.'
Most sources list America national dish as hamburger first, then hot dog, then pumpkin pie. Of all options pumpkin pie is the most 'American' - hot dogs and hamburgers are German and apple pie is hardly American as it has been cooked in England for a thousand years and was baked in the american colonies to remind the colonists of their place of birth.
Maybe they just told me it was oatmeal to get me to eat it.
Those tricky Scots! I'll bet they are still laughing.
'Yummy! Can I have seconds?'
It's OK served the scottish way with 'neeps, but it actually makes a very good stuffing for turkey and chicken. Personally I'll stick with very rare roast beef and yorkshire pudding served with english mustard and followed by a good old english bramley apple pie served with piping hot custard. Yum.
'Maybe they just told me it was oatmeal to get me to eat it. '
There's usually some oatmeal mixed in to make it go further so they weren't really lying, just being economical with the truth!
You make deragatory slurs such as this and then have the nerve to invoke the name of our Lord?
Now I'm hungry. I'm gonna run right out to an 'English Restaurant'.
oh wait ..... there aren't any.
Will the ban on smoking include smoking "mellow yellow?"
Anybody catch Donovan's night club act in D. C. the last few days?
That was over forty years ago, when I was young and dumb. They couldn't fool me now! LOL!
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