Peter Hollins, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, sets out the case for banning cigarette vending machines.
Question: Why seek to ban cigarette vending machines?
Peter Hollins: For us at the British Heart Foundation this is very clear. Heart and circulatory disease is the biggest killer of people in the UK. Something like three-quarters of heart disease is avoidable with lifestyle changes and the biggest avoidable form of heart disease is the use of tobacco and smoking. If you can get rid of smoking, you will have a huge impact on heart disease.
The reality is that most people who are smokers start very young and a very high percentage of young people who are smokers get their cigarettes through vending machines and continue to access it in that way.
So what we are trying to do is to help young people get out of a habit that is ultimately going to kill them.
Question: What would you say to those that argue that banning vending machines takes away freedom of choice from older smokers?
Peter Hollins: Well, the reality is that a relatively small proportion of cigarettes are sold through vending machines, it is only about one per cent. So for most adult smokers, if they want to get their cigarettes, they can get them elsewhere.
Cigarettes from vending machines are disproportionately sold to young people. There is no major inconvenience to adult smokers, but there is major incentive to stopping young people smoking.
Question: Who do you think is to blame for the relative popularity of cigarette vending machines amongst young people?
Peter Hollins: Given that only one per cent of cigarettes are bought from vending machines, why is the cigarette industry so keen on keeping them? The reality is, of course, that if you get a young person addicted to smoking at an early age they can sell a whole lot more cigarettes to them throughout their working life.
These machines play a macabre role in creating addicts. We should get shot of them.
