Tobacco – going dark or going black market?

By government standards, Post Office Ltd's financial losses are tiny, but they have insisted on going through political hell to “solve the problem”, having genuinely not seen the full implications of what they were imposing on local shops and the communities they serve.

Government proposals often seem to be well meant but have these unintended consequences.

This could be about to happen with tobacco displays, where a small idea will have big consequences if it is implemented.

As part of a wider consultation, the Department of Health are putting forward a proposal to ban the open display of tobacco products. Displays are deemed to make the product seem normal.

Apart from the inconvenient fact that no other product has packs with “smoking kills” across them – which does make tobacco rather stand out – there is no real evidence that this “going dark” process will reduce tobacco sales, even from the experience of other places such as some Canadian provinces where this has already happened.

“Going dark” is a genuinely well-intentioned government initiative.

It would be hard for retailers to comply with it and add disproportionately to retail costs, but most of the shopkeepers we represent would approve of it if they thought it would have beneficial results.

However, there is no evidence that it would help to stop young people from starting to smoke.

It does nothing to address the massive illegal market for tobacco in this country and crucially, by reducing the perceived difference between counterfeit or smuggled and the legitimate product, it could actually make the whole tobacco problem a lot worse. As unintended consequences go, that is a big one!

In going for this easy target, the Government is missing the elephant in the room. The huge issue with respect to tobacco is the proportion of smuggled and counterfeit products on sale up and down the country.

The figures are horrific. It is estimated that two-thirds of rolling tobacco smoked is non-UK duty paid, while more than a quarter of cigarettes fall into this category.

This is a hard problem to solve. The loss of tax revenue is staggering.

But in addition, the huge size of this illegal market negates many of the good initiatives to control tobacco consumption. The chap selling counterfeit cigarettes from his van in a pub car park does not demand proof of age from his customers.

And here's the issue. By taking tobacco off open display in legitimate stockists, you immediately remove a key difference between them and the black market operators.

A tobacco gantry behind the counter is there to be seen by the police, trading standards officers and honest customers. Products hidden away could be legitimate, smuggled or counterfeit – all look the same coming out from under the counter.

The arguments

Open display “normalises” the product

Possibly has some validity – but the result may work either way. Young smokers starting off will have probably had considerable discouragement from school and other adult figures, but still smoke.

Legitimate retailers are enforcing the ban on sales to under-18s well; to that degree displays are irrelevant to young people. Driving tobacco sales underground may actually make smoking more attractive as forbidden fruit, a rebellion.

Open display triggers smokers to buy

It is very rare to see a customer triggered to buy tobacco by seeing the display. It must happen – the tobacco companies paying for all those in-store gantries are not stupid – but the effect is very small. Smokers go into shops to buy cigarettes and see other things while they are there, not the other way around.

Open display makes it harder for smokers to give up

Compared with the physical craving from nicotine addiction, a display in a shop is a minor factor at best.

Proportionality

Government proposals have to show benefits outweighing the costs incurred. Taking tobacco off display would need a lot of new counters with the right internal fittings and a high level of security – metal-lined and bolted to the floor.

Not cheap. In a busy shop, having staff bending down many times a day may demand more space between the back wall and the counter and hence a rearrangement of fittings.

A possible alternative, leaving the gantry in place with some sort of screen in front of it, is no real solution. This whole issue probably sounds a trivial point to non-retailers, but it is not. There are real costs involved for an unproved benefit.

Stopping young people smoking

Convenience stores and village shops are not the “coolest” places to be seen in if you are a teenager. Constantly bombarded with sophisticated 24/7 images from advertising, computer games, DVDs and the rest, you are very media savvy.

It seems pretty unlikely that a static tobacco gantry in a deeply uncool neighbourhood shop is going to persuade you to smoke.

It is your friends and peers that have the most influence. You are more likely to smoke if your parents do. Research suggests that all the money spent on anti smoking initiatives in schools has virtually no impact. Young smokers are also much more likely than other teenagers to use illegal drugs, get drunk on alcohol, to skip school and to be involved in crime.

Solving the social problems that make it more likely that young people will start smoking is desperately difficult, but that is the real issue.