Voluntary agreement on tobacco advertising

EDITOR,—Richard Doll and colleagues report that half of all regular cigarette smokers will be killed by their habit.1 Cigarette smoking among 11–15 year olds in England, however, is not falling,2 and the government's target in the Health of the Nation to reduce smoking among 11–15 year olds by a third by 1994 is unlikely to be met. Tobacco advertising influences the uptake of smoking among young people,3 yet the government is against a ban on such advertising, saying that voluntary agreements provide effective control.

In October 1993 all 84 newsagents in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull were visited to monitor the extent of tobacco advertising and the compliance of the advertisements with the voluntary agreement.⁴ Tobacco advertisements were carried on the exterior of 70 of the 84 newsagents, with a median of three items per newsagent (range 0–29). Twenty eight advertisements suspected of breaching the voluntary agreement were reported to the monitoring body, the Committee for Monitoring Agreements on Tobacco Advertising and Sponsorship. The reply from the committee confirmed that 10 items (all from Imperial Tobacco) breached the voluntary agreement as they did not include health warnings. A further seven items did not carry a health warning, but as they predated 1983 this did not represent a breach as long as the tobacco companies rectified the situation (this highlights a loophole in the voluntary agreement). Five other items had their health warning covered by other material, which thus constituted an “inadvertent” breach (that is, one for which the tobacco company was not responsible).The above items were found at 20 of the 84 newsagents.

In the committee's annual report for 1994 the Solihull survey contributed 28 of the 36 complaints, 10 of the 11 acknowledged breaches, and 5 of the 6 inadvertent breaches.5 These findings are similar to those in previous years, when the reporting of suspected breaches to the committee and the identification of confirmed breaches has been attributed to a small number of organisations.6

Our survey in Solihull confirms previous findings that breaches of the voluntary agreement are common but monitoring is generally non-existent.6 The voluntary agreement does not provide effective control of tobacco advertising; this removes the government's defence in its refusal to ban tobacco advertising.

The survey was partially funded by the Health Education Authority HELIOS Project.