The U.K. government said on Tuesday that it would legislate to ban the display of cigarette products from shops, but stopped short of ending the sale of cigarettes from vending machines. Furthermore, it abandoned the idea of stripping tobacco products of their logos. However, tighter age restrictions will be brought in for vending machines. Health Secretary Alan Johnson announced the moves after the biggest ever response to a public consultation of this kind, with 96,000 people submitting replies. According to the new laws, from October 2011, large shops will have to remove all tobacco displays from the point of sale and smaller businesses will have to comply by 2013.

Recent data shows that in countries were the tobacco displays were removed, the smoking prevalence among young people has fallen by up 10 percent. Anyway, further consultations will be held on how to ensure children do not buy cigarettes from vending machines. Among the discussed ways of doing that, we find: requiring customers to buy tokens from the pub landlord or shopkeeper, electronic ID cards to operate the machines or infra red remote control which the shopkeeper activates if they believe the customer to be over 18.

The voted measures will be brought in by 2011 and they will be strictly monitored in order to see if they are producing any results. If not, then ministers will even consider banning vending machines altogether in 2013. A recent study shows that vending machines are the primary source of cigarettes for nearly one in five young people aged 11 to 15 and children prove to be able to use the machines in more than 40% of the test purchases. The British Heart Foundation estimates that about 46,000 children purchased their cigarettes from vending machines in 2006. It seems that the government will work closely with retailers to develop regulations setting out detailed requirements. The government wants to make sure these decisions will not affect retailers and their businesses. However, health campaigners say these decisions take too long to implement, so, therefore, others should be adopted.

Another study says that over eight in ten adults in Britain who have ever smoked regularly say that they started before they were 19, which once again proves how important it is to stop children from buying cigarettes. In order to stop this flagellum, it's important to prevent it, because it is really hard to quit smoking. It's clearly easier not to smoke in the first place. Analysts have warned such measures will stop the tobacco firms from growing profit and they also say such legislation in the U.K. could  prompt other countries to adopt the measures, which is not a bad thing after all.