• 8/27/2006
  • Syndey, Australia
  • Danny Buttler
  • Herald Sun (www.news.com.au)

Smokers and cigarette sellers are going to extraordinary levels to avoid graphic new tobacco warnings.

Retailers are displaying packets upside down so the explicit health warnings are not visible to customers. And smokers are requesting specific packs, which have statistical warnings rather than gruesome images of smoking-related illnesses. Other are buying cheap plastic cigarette packet covers or transferring their smokes to “retro” glo-mesh containers.

The trend comes as new research shows more than half of Victorians want plain paper packaging on tobacco products. Shocking images of gangrenous limbs, cancerous mouths and choked arteries were introduced to Victoria in March.

Southbank Newsagency is one cigarette seller that has turned packets upside-down to keep the vivid images from the public eye.

“We do it so we or the customers who don’t smoke don’t have to see them,” Sue Lomax said.

“They make me feel ill, they turn my stomach.”

Ms Lomax said smokers had been requesting staff hunt through their favourite brand to find packets without the stomach-churning images.

“They come and ask for the ones with statistics,” she said.

“They don’t want to see the teeth or the feet.”

Quit executive director Todd Harper said the reaction of smokers showed the new packaging was making people think twice about their potentially fatal habit.

“It highlights that they are having an impact if consumers are going to such lengths that they don’t want certain images on their packets.

“My guess is that they would be avoiding the gangrene and mouth cancer images — we’ve done a lot of research and they seem to be the ones with the most impact. In those two instances they are a very visible manifestation of the illnesses associated with smoking.”

But Mr Harper suggested tobacco companies could be behind point-of-sale tricks.

“I’m sure that is part of a deliberate strategy by the tobacco companies.”

A Cancer Council of Victoria study into cigarette packaging has revealed that more than half of Victorians approve of plain packaging for cigarettes.