The Purse As Persuader

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31198, 24 October 1966, Page 10

The Purse As Persuader

Anti-smoking campaigners in New Zealand should study the reasons for the recent decrease in the number of cigarette smokers in Britain. A Health Ministry survey just released says that last year the number of non-smokers increased by one million. This trend emerged, “ especially among teen-agers ”, while the Ministry was intensifying its warnings of a probable link between cigarette smoking and cancer. The need for such a campaign, especially in the schools, was depressingly emphasised in August, when the results of an inquiry into children’s smoking habits at a Coventry school were made public. Forty per cent of the children, it was shown, were smoking at the age of 14—some of them having begun at the age of five, apparently with the passive consent of parents who regard the habit as evidence of precocious achievement. In Britain, as in New Zealand, there are restrictions on cigarette advertising, which no doubt help in some degree to limit addiction. Advertising on television, for example, is not permitted. No such ban affects advertising in the United States, although manufacturers have been required since the beginning of this year to print a warning on cigarette packages and cartons that smoking might be hazardous to health.

In defence of the British attitude to cigarette smoking, it has been argued that persuasion is preferable to prohibition. Anti-smoking propaganda is no doubt beginning to have an effect, even though some people still hold that no link between smoking and cancer has been conclusively shown. It is probable, however, that in Britain the cost of smoking is proving a more effective deterrent than propaganda. When, in his April Budget last year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Callaghan, increased the duty on tobacco by 10s per lb, the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes rose from 4s lid to 5s sd. New Zealand smokers, whose incomes, on average, are higher than United Kingdom incomes, still pay as little as 2s 6d for 20 cigarettes. Price is a major factor in persuading many people to give up cigarettes. Before the 1965 Budget in the United Kingdom, when cigarettes there cost nearly twice as much as in New Zealand, per capita consumption of tobacco in New Zealand was 20 per cent higher than in the United Kingdom. Mr Callaghan’s motive for increasing the rate of duty last year was, of course, the extra tax yield—an estimated £75 million. But a change in public behaviour significantly related to health standards must also be regarded as of outstanding importance. One million fewer smokers in a year represents positive progress in the field of public hygiene, regardless of the causes of the trend towards abstinence.