International expert warns that tobacco industry hasn't given up on recruiting Ireland’s young people as smokers

• Tobacco industry needs over 50 Irish kids to start smoking every day to maintain the size of its current customer base

One of the world’s experts on tobacco, Professor Ken Warner, today (Wednesday, 30 May) warned that the tobacco industry has not given up on recruiting Ireland’s young people as smokers.  Professor Warner, who is Dean of Public Health, at the University of Michigan, made his comments at a press briefing this morning in Jury’s Croke Park Hotel.  Tomorrow, Professor Warner will deliver the keynote address at the Office of Tobacco Control’s (OTC) conference, Children, Youth and Tobacco: Causes, Consequences and Action, in Dublin’s Croke Park.

“In Ireland the tobacco industry loses over 8,000 of its customers every year due to quitting, and a further 5,700 due to smoking-produced death.  Several thousand smokers also die of other causes.  For every smoker who dies or quits, the industry needs a ‘replacement smoker’, a child who will become addicted and replenish the base of long-term smokers.  Therefore, for the industry to simply maintain the size of its customer base in Ireland, over 50 Irish kids have to start smoking every day of the year!”

Professor Ken Warner explained that in Ireland, Office of Tobacco Control research shows that 53% of all Irish smokers started to smoke at or before the age of 15 years.

“This doesn't mean that the tobacco industry is responsible for all the young people who start to smoke – far from it; some would start to smoke even if there were no major cigarette manufacturers.  But it does mean that the industry has a huge incentive to see kids starting to smoke…and remaining as smokers.  And evidence – particularly that discovered as a result of lawsuits in the US – indicates that the industry has long been aware of that, and long tried to create replacement smokers.”

Professor Warner explained that the methods used by the tobacco industry to recruit young smokers include direct advertising, such as point of sale displays in shops. 

“Point of sale advertising in shops is one of the tobacco industry’s key methods for recruiting children.  Such advertising occurs in a very familiar place – the local shop – and seeks to make cigarettes part of children’s normal social environment.  The positioning of such point-of-sale advertising – at and behind the till – is also crucial and means that when children come to pay for their goods, or are standing with their parents when they make their purchases, tobacco advertising is directly in their eyeline.”

Professor Ken Warner said that he noted with interest that – until recently – a number of tobacco companies had been seeking to overturn those sections of the Public Health (Tobacco) Acts which outlaw such point-of-sale advertising.  He said that he thought it rather curious that one week before the case was due to be heard in the High Court, the companies withdrew their case and conceded costs after having pursued their case for almost five years.

“Historically, product placement in television shows and films has been another tool used by the tobacco industry to persuade viewers to buy their products because a ‘star’ used it.  Research in the US showed that young people are particularly susceptible to such marketing practices.  One study demonstrated that 31% of teens who saw more than 150 occurrences of smoking in films in cinemas, on video or on television, had tried smoking compared to only 4% among teens who had seen less than 50 occurrences.  In this context, it’s worth noting that between 1988 and 1997, 85% of the top 25 box office Hollywood films dramatized the use of tobacco.  During the same period, a third of films rated for adolescents – and one in five children’s movies rated G or PG – showed cigarette brand logos.

“Over many years, tobacco companies regularly provided cigarettes, gifts, services or cash in exchange for placement of their products in films.  Companies worked to place their products in specific movies and have them smoked by specific actors.  Previously secret tobacco industry documents contain correspondence between cigarette makers, actors and studios for the use of certain brands or for the appearance of advertisements, packs, billboards, trucks and other items bearing brands, names and logos.  Indeed, at the conference one of the speakers will show a letter from Sylvester Stallone confirming an agreement by him to smoke Brown and Williamson products in no less than five films for a fee of $500,000”.

Professor Ken Warner, while applauding the introduction of the smoke-free workplace regulations in 2004, warned that Ireland's smoking problem is not solved.

“In particular, I was disturbed to observe on a recent trip to Dublin lots of young people smoking, indeed, almost entirely young people.  Those I saw smoking even included a few children who couldn't have been more than 12 or 13 years old.  While the smoke-free workplace regulation protects non-smokers, Ireland still hasn't protected nonsmokers entirely, especially children. 

“Despite Ireland's extraordinary efforts, and remarkable achievements, a quarter of Irish adults continue to smoke…and the next generation of the Irish – your children – continue to serve as replacement smokers for an industry that knows no shame, but only greed”, Professor Ken Warner concluded.