Help protect children from tobacco marketing

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind Action

In November 2008, over 50,000 of you signed our petition to protect children by putting tobacco Out of Sight and Out of Mind. Our campaign was a great success, securing new laws to put tobacco out of sight in shops and supermarkets and end the sale of cigarettes from vending machines. However, we are concerned that this important legislation will not be implemented. We need your help to make sure that these laws are introduced to protect children from starting this potentially deadly habit.

Please take a moment to email your MP now to ask them to ensure that the regulations needed come into force and to keep public health at the heart of the Coalition Government. If you have already emailed your MP and would like to do more, please take a moment to spread the word to your local newspapers.

Read on to see why these laws are so essential and how they will save lives.

About the Campaign 

FACT: Over 80 per cent of smokers start before the age of 19.

FACT: Half of all long-term smokers will die of cancer or other smoking-related diseases.

Tobacco advertising has been banned on television, in print and on billboards. Yet children are still regularly exposed to branding on packs and attractive tobacco displays in shops. By removing tobacco from public view we can reduce the pull towards a potentially deadly addiction.

We know that many young people, particularly underage smokers, buy cigarettes from vending machines. Removing these machines altogether is the only effective means of preventing underage smokers obtaining cigarettes from these sources.

For our ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’ campaign, we urged the Westminster Parliament and Scottish Parliament to extinguish tobacco marketing to children.

As ever, our supporters played a pivotal role in this campaign by responding to a Government consultation, writing to their political representatives and generally making a loud noise about the need to protect children.

We were delighted when all this hard work paid off. New laws were passed in the Westminster Parliament (covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and in the Scottish Parliament, to get rid of tobacco displays at the till in shops and introduce powers to get rid of tobacco vending machines.

The changes should start taking effect from 2011 and should be fully implemented in 2013, however we are now concerned that we may lose the regulations needed to enforce these laws in England.

We now need to ensure that this amazing success is protected and that we finally put tobacco out of sight and out of mind.

Thank you so much to all of our supporters for their hard work so far.

Take action now to protect our children and ensure the health of future generations.