ENews: Blair speeds up total ban on tobacco adverts (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Blair speeds up total ban on tobacco  adverts

by The Mail on Sunday (United Kingdom) via NewsEdge
Date: Wednesday, 5/26/99
        
The Mail on Sunday (United Kingdom) via NewsEdge Corporation : TONY BLAIR will 
declare war on tobacco giants by speeding through a ban on posters and glossy 
advertisements which lure teenagers into taking up smoking.

In his crusade against the causes of cancer, the Prime Minister will order a 
total ban on billboards and magazine advertisements for cigarettes from 
December.

The dramatic move is due to be announced by Health Secretary Frank Dobson 
within a fortnight.

The decision to stop the advertisements well ahead of an EU deadline was made 
after alarming figures revealed a soaring number of teenage smokers.

Under an EU directive, countries must tear down billboards for cigarettes by 
August 2001 and end magazine and Press advertising a year later. The draconian 
crackdown by Mr Blair and Mr Dobson, both non-smokers, will send shockwaves 
through the industry.

Ministers want the ban in place by December 10, which would mark a year since 
the Government published Smoking Kills - a document listing ways to cut 
Britain's annual 120,000 smoking-related deaths.

A senior ministerial source said last night: 'We want to reduce the number of 
teenagers who smoke by 110,000 in the next ten years, cutting the number by at 
least a third. Smoking kills - it's not glamorous and it's not cool.'

Latest figures show 96 per cent of children have seen a tobacco advertisement 
in the past six months and every day 450 teenagers take up smoking.

Industry experts predict the ban could cost advertising firms up to pounds 100 
million a year and 2,000 jobs.

Only a limited number of sponsored events, such as Formula One motor racing, 
will be exempt from the ban. The sport was granted an exemption until 2006, but
Mr Dobson is battling to end the exemption earlier as he strives to persuade up
to 112 million of Britain's 12 million smokers to quit.

Controversy over the exemption marked Tony Blair's first 'sleaze' row. It 
centred on a meeting in 1997 between Mr Blair and the sport's supremo, Bernie 
Ecclestone, a major Labour Party donor at the time, days before the Government 
changed its policy on tobacco sponsorship of motor racing.

Anti-smoking campaigners welcomed the advertising ban, but warned that tobacco 
manufacturers might challenge it.

Steve Bates, director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said: 'The fact 
that the ban will be in so soon is tremendous news, but I suspect some tobacco 
firms will try to mount a legal challenge.'

Mr Dobson is also planning to spend pounds 60 million to help smokers to break 
the habit and pounds 50 million on making youngsters aware of the dangers of 
smoking.

ASH and cancer charities fear tobacco firms will try to circumvent the ban by 
'brand-stretching'. This includes promoting cigarettes through designer 
clothing which will carry distinctive logos aimed at luring teenagers into 
smoking.

<<The Mail on Sunday (United Kingdom) -- 05-23-99>>
        
        [Copyright 1999, The McCarthy Files (Financial Times)]