This week, representatives of the group signed a Cancer Society banner calling for tobacco products to be placed ‘‘Out of Sight - Out of Mind'' to protect children from tobacco marketing.
‘‘We put in a lot of effort last year to raise MPs' awareness of the issue, collecting signatures and sending in postcards, so it would be great for the ban to be imposed,'' committee member Emma Taylor (17) said.
‘‘Why should something that is so harmful be allowed to be on display in shops, where anyone can see it?'' she asked.
The Cancer Society in Otago has put out a call for Dunedin people to put pen to paper and lobby MPs as part of a nationwide campaign to ban tobacco displays in shops.
‘‘It is a matter of some urgency that we keep this issue in front of MPs now,'' Cancer Society Otago health promotion co-ordinator Penelope Scott said.
Late last year, after an intensive public campaign, the Labourdominated Health Select Committee recommended a total ban on tobacco displays. However, the national members of the committee opposed the ban, putting forth the ‘‘minority view'' that there was a need for ‘‘more international evidence that banning tobacco displays would bring about a significant decrease in smoking''.
Now that National is in government, the Cancer Society is concerned that the original recommendation could be overturned.
Cabinet is due to discuss the recommendation on about February 24, and the deadline for the government's response is March 4.
‘‘A ban is about safeguarding our children's future and removing visual cues for those trying to quit smoking,'' Mrs Scott said.
‘‘We need to prevent children from being influenced to start smoking by seeing tobacco products nestled benignly between the bread and milk.''
Contacted by The Star, a spokesman for Health Minister Tony Ryall said the minister was considering the issue before taking his recommendation to Cabinet later this month.
• Concerned Dunedin people can contribute to the campaign by filling in the The Out of Sight - Out of Mind ‘‘postcard'', published on page 6 of this issue of The Star and then posting it to parliament.
