ASH: ban non-menthol brands whose names are similar to prohibited brands!!

You've got to laugh.

It’s not even a week since menthol cigarettes were outlawed and ASH and their pet MP Bob Blackman (who chairs the ASH-controlled All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health) are already complaining.

Today’s Daily Mail reports that Blackman and ASH CEO Deborah Arnott are in a tizz because JTI has launched some new non-menthol cigarette brands whose names are similar to some of the now prohibited menthol brands.

According to the Mail ('The tobacco firm that is still making a mint from menthol cigarettes'):

They are being advertised under the slogan 'menthol reimagined' and customers claim they taste 'fully menthol'.

Well, two customers actually, out of 1.3 million.

That said, taste is a strange thing. When plain packaging was introduced some smokers initially claimed the flavour of their cigarettes had changed.

If I remember there were reports of this in Australia and later in the UK, but according to the companies the cigarettes were just the same as before.

The complaints lasted a few weeks, then stopped. Similarly, I suspect that in a few weeks no-one - not even a couple of random people on Twitter - will be arguing that non-menthol cigarettes taste of menthol.

Anyway, the Mail adds that:

Campaigners last night called for the Government to outlaw the new brands as well.

Of course they did!

Smoking bans, the ban on tobacco vending machines, the display ban, plain packaging, bans on ten packs and smaller pouches of rolling tobacco, and now the ban on menthol-flavoured cigarettes, none of this is enough for anti-smoking activists like ASH and Bob Blackman.

Now they want to ban non-menthol brands whose names are similar to prohibited menthol brands!

The point, surely, is that the new brands are NOT menthol cigarettes and JTI has acted entirely in accordance with the law.

The aim - and it’s a perfectly legitimate one - is to appeal to brand loyalty. Like most consumers, smokers are known to stick to the same brand for years if not decades.

This isn’t a trade secret. It’s one of the reasons the companies were so opposed to plain packaging. At a stroke, extremely valuable brands that had been developed, quite legally, over decades lost defining characteristics - logos, colours etc - that were potentially worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Advertising and sponsorship, it was often argued, was not about encouraging the next generation to smoke but persuading existing smokers to switch from one brand to a rival brand.

Even in a declining market, if one per cent of consumers changed brand that could be worth millions to the companies concerned.

It is not unreasonable that a tobacco company faced with the prohibition of an entire category of cigarette should give those customers the choice of staying loyal by offering them a similar named, albeit non-menthol, product.

The alternative is to potentially lose those customers to a rival company and investors would not be best pleased.

It’s worth noting however that every UK tobacco company has been actively promoting non-combustible and therefore less risky alternatives to menthol cigarettes, so this is not a question of keeping consumers hooked on cigarettes.

JTI, Imperial, BAT and Philip Morris have all been promoting - as best they can given the ridiculous restrictions on marketing risk reduction products - devices such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco as alternatives to smoking.

What I find sad and a little troubling is the mindset behind the more illiberal anti-smoking campaigners.

If you were in their shoes you might think the menthol cigarette ban was a moment for rejoicing. Instead, the old brain cells are racing, the cogs turning, to find fault with the ban.

I can imagine Deborah lying in bed at night thinking, “What have we forgotten? What loophole will the tobacco industry exploit to find ways round the legislation? How can we stop them? How .....” Zzzzzzz.

Next morning:

“Hello, Bob, it’s Deborah. I had a bad dream last night.

“Big Tobacco was selling non-menthol flavoured cigarettes, completely legally, but the brand names are similar to the brands we worked so hard to ban.

“Children were smoking them because in my dream there were no laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to anyone under 18.

“They really liked the minty taste even though there wasn’t a minty taste because menthol cigarettes have been banned.

“It's a nightmare, Bob. What can we do?”

I don't know what Bob said, but my advice? Stop tormenting yourself, Deborah. That way madness lies.

Relish your ‘success’ and take pleasure from the fact that a flavoured cigarette enjoyed by millions of adults, sometimes for decades, has overnight been removed from the shops.

Of course, I fully expect to hear calls not only for a ban on non-menthol cigarettes that have names that are similar to prohibited brands, but also demands for a ban on the use of the word 'green' on cigarette packs.

After all, when you see or hear the word ‘green’ what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Trees, fields, grass, colour, the environment, politics or ... menthol cigarettes?

I rest my case.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

2 customers out of 1.3million? Neither of them children which was the excuse the bully boys and girls in tobacco control used to force tobacco companies to stop selling a product of choice to informed adults well over the age legally allowed to smoke. I am amazed our Government is as stupid as ASH thinks it is.

[pete soakel]

I found that filter cigarettes fit perfectly in the hole in the centre of a polo mint, problem solved)