Letter: Smoke appeal

Plain cigarette packet campaigners continue to invalidate their efforts through poor argumentation. Cancer Research UK’s Vicky Crichton (Platform, 30 April) relies on an outlandish non sequitur, linking a little boy saying “I think it (a packet) would be quite fun to play with” to an attraction to “deadly products”. Did the boy mention cigarettes or smoking, I wonder?

I’ve yet to identify any established inferential link between the claim that children will take up smoking and the evidence of finding packets attractive.

Conversely, packet design appeal does fit in with the companies’ assertion of merely encouraging existing smokers to change brands, similar to other product promotion.

Drug use certainly seems to be as prevalent as ever without public display or fancy wrapping.

Bizarrely, a research report by the same CRUK involving 15-year-olds showed they were barely aware of cigarette packaging and had never seen many of the packs displayed in the experiment. Crucially, some confirmed what most people already know from experience: at the initiation stage, packaging was merely peripheral, to the extent of not even being seen.

The government will surely require more substantial evidence before interfering in what little promotion is still allowed in tobacco marketing.

Robert Dow

Ormiston Road

Tranent, East Lothian