UK Health Minister - Cigs are too gorgeous and glamorous
In September 2013, the (then?) UK Public Health Minister Anna Soubry said she took up smoking as a teen because she found the packaging too gorgeous:
“It sounds very weak, I accept. But the power of the packet as a 17-year-old in Worksop bizarrely working in a toy shop, which in those days sold cigarettes."
She added: "I have never forgotten the first time I bought a packet of cigarettes and I deliberately chose a packet of St Moritz because they were green and they were gorgeous and they were a symbol of, may I say, glamour.
"And I distinctly remember, and I admit, it was the power of that package, it was the opening of the cellophane, the gold and the silver, that is so powerfully important in many people who as youngsters take up smoking."
It is interesting that she was once in love with smoking, using words such as 'powerful' and 'deliberately' to emphasise the 'gorgeous glamour' of the product. But after the lies forced on her to make her quit, she become an MP and tried (failed) to champion the UK Plain Packaging movement. She cares deeply about smoking:
Anna said: "Nicotine creates a "perverse psychology of smoking"."
I also find it interesting that Anna says the 'overwhelming majority' of smokers what to quit smoking. I doubt this comment can be backed up with facts.
" We know that 8 million people in this country continue to smoke and that the overwhelming majority of them want to stop. It is an admission of some weakness within us, which I think is the power of nicotine."
There are far less number of people who want to stop than the overwhelming majority. People smoke for all kinds of reasons, and there is not a line of people camped outside of hospitals waiting for anti-smoking drugs. I'd say maybe 20% of people will want to give up due to choice, with a further 10% willing to give up to save a few bucks. But to say people are slaves to nicotine is ridiculous, considering people quit all the time.
links:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10 ... ckets.html
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-240974 ... oubry.html
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/sep/0 ... -packaging
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-heal ... ry-2248646