Smoke without fire

WE have strong concerns about the report from Stirling University ‘Tobacco firms bribe shops with freebies to push brands’ (Mail).

The report ignores the significant efforts undertaken by convenience store retailers to comply with the tobacco display ban. Equally importantly, the report ignores the impact of the plain packaging of tobacco products which has been in force in all stores across Scotland since May of this year. The restrictions imposed by the display ban are much more severe in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. Taken together with plain packaging this means that stores simply cannot ‘promote’ or ‘position’ cigarettes in the way the report asserts.

Tobacco is an entirely legal product – in 2016 the UK Treasury earned £11.5billion per year from the sale of these products – and at significant cost to themselves many retailers are installing new storage units and moving away from behind-thecounter gantries.

In Scotland, compliance with the legislation has been very high, with at least 98 per cent of stores implementing the display ban, with non-compliance restricted almost entirely to minor contraventions.

The refurbishment of shops with new or adapted tobacco gantries has in fact resulted in the removal of nearly all commercial brand messages and images from point of sale. DR JOHN LEE, Head of Policy

and Public Affairs, Scottish Grocers Federation,

Edinburgh.