• 4/7/2005
  • Tasmania, Australia
  • Claire Konkes
  • The Mercury State News

COLES supermarkets in Tasmania have become the first major stores in the country to end cigarette promotion by covering cigarette displays. This week’s move comes as quit-smoking campaigners say a confronting picture on cigarette displays is working.

Other Tasmanian stores have taken cigarettes off display after it became mandatory for Tasmanian retailers to display the graphic poster of mouth cancer last year.

Coles Myer — Australia’s biggest retailer — is the first large company to voluntarily cover cigarette displays with plastic or cardboard blockers. QUIT Tasmania executive director Michael Wilson said the response to the cancerous mouth poster was extraordinary.

“This is a forerunner to the response of putting the picture on the packets,” he said.

“We are going to be extremely busy as people start to quit.”

Smoke Free Tasmania convener Kathy Barnsley said the “yucky picture” of a man’s mouth riddled with cancer was having an effect. But she said the perception of cigarettes as “tacky”, personal choice and an attraction to thieves also had contributed to the move away from displays.

Ms Barnsley commended Coles for showing “outstanding corporate governance” by taking cigarettes out of sight.

With most smokers already addicted to their favourite brand, moving tobacco out of sight would mean children were not constantly exposed to advertising and displays, she said.

Coles Myer corporate communications manager Caroline Lawrey said the decision was the best solution to the dilemma of offering adults the choice to smoke but keeping cigarette advertising away from people under 18 years. Those trying to quit also would be given a break from advertising.

Former Dodges Ferry smoker Ina McBride, 63 — who has campaigned to have cigarettes taken from display since she was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997 — said the move was wonderful.

“The hardest thing for people quitting the fags is cigarettes at check-outs,” she said.

“While you’re waiting they are in your face saying buy me, buy me.”

Ms McBride described the move by Coles as “the most hopeful thing I have heard in many years”.

“This helps people avoid lung cancer,” she said.