Me too, six or seven years now! I never, ever crave a cigarette.....the thought of having one makes me feel sick actually! I want to cry when I see young people smoking. How long until peddlers of this vile drug are held socially responsible, it sickens me.
People say, "It's your choice to smoke...", I was fourteen, I was an idiot, it was not an informed choice.
... it would completely destroy their brand image?
Muji- healthy, clean, simple.
Cigarettes- none of the above.
This is the key issue for cigarette manufacturers. The usually suggest the money they spend is on retaining customers but brand loyalty is quite high for smokers so it probably has a bigger impact on new smokers. New smokers see the adverts or product placements and associate it with themselves for whatever reason.
If point of sale branding is no longer allowed it will seriously reduce the probability of previous advertising being effective in getting the new smoker choosing the 'right brand'. This will make advertising for cigarettes a lot more difficult in real terms so there should be less effective advertising hopefully reducing overall number of new smokers.
Unbelievable. Why doesn't the kid get taken away from such STUPID parents?
Was reading an article in the Independent about this. In the article, the following was said:
"Philip Morris said it would continue to pursue compensation through the terms of a bilateral investment treaty between Australia and Hong Kong."
Anyone know what this is about??
HK in the firing line for global tobacco
Latest News Columns & Insight from Hong Kong & China | SCMP.com
"Bonny Schoonakker
Updated on Aug 17, 2012
The threat by a global tobacco company to invoke its Hong Kong-derived rights in Australia carries about it a strong whiff of desperation. The warning was made by Philip Morris, owner of Marlboro, which along with other companies has lost a court challenge in Canberra against the world's first law banning cigarette branding.
Instead of packaging that manages to be familiar despite health warnings and obscene images, in Australia cigarettes will be sold only in "generic packaging" - making all varieties indistinguishable from one another and bearing images of the dead and dying. Along with the Marlboro cowboy, billions of dollars worth of branding is about to head off into the sunset, starting in Australia.
Philip Morris says it will seek compensation under the terms of Australia's bilateral investment protection treaty with Hong Kong. In reports on this week's hearings in Canberra, it emerged that Philip Morris' brands in Australia are owned by Philip Morris Asia, which has been incorporated in this city since 1994.
Article 1 (e) (iv) of the 1993 Hong Kong-Australia bilateral investment treaty does offer protection for trademarks, but subject to the laws of either country, which in the case of Australia have now been changed and will take effect in December. Article 5 allows for compensation but only in the case of losses owing to war, revolution, insurrection "or other similar events". It says nothing about compensation for losses caused by legislation which has been constitutionally enacted by a democratic country acting out of concern for the health of its citizens.
Much to the horror of Big Tobacco, Australia's new law will be copied by other countries if it is shown that such legislation can overcome the hurdles thrown up by tobacco companies. If not, an obscure treaty with Hong Kong will have served as global tobacco's last line of defence. That's a dubious honour for this city, but an unlikely one, with the tobacco industry showing all the signs of someone who should have stopped smoking ages ago: shortness of breath and a haunted, deathly pallor."