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  I am all for stopping the young from starting to smoke, I went into the Coop in River today the counter there has tobacco on full view. Now you can go to the coop in River any school morning and it has a good number of parents in there getting whatever, prior to dropping their children off at school. You can also go there in the evening and outside you will nearly always find a group of youngsters who are in and out of the shop. So there as in all small shops the tobacco is in full view.
  
  I was also in Morrison's yesterday and while waiting for my wife a lady was at the tobacco counter with a little girl around 8 years old. The mother asked for cigarettes and the shutter covering the cigarettes was opened to get them and the cigarettes were then on full view to the youngster. The mother then got for her daughter (with the use of her shop receipts) some Disney Cards which you get on offer. Now had the mother got the cards first no doubt her daughter would have been looking at them and not the cigarettes that came into full view on purchase.
  
  It is a typical British hair brain idea not thought through and implemented fully. If it is to help not smoking then it should be for all shops. The young unlikely to go to the large supermarkets for their cigarettes, they are on the other hand more likely to go to the small shops where they will not always be challenged about their age.
  
  Attitudes do need to change about the young starting to smoke but it needs to start in the homes and at school. Go past the secondary schools and see how many children you see smoking outside the school gates and while they walk home. Do they get challenged by the teachers, I doubt it. In my school days we went behind the school shed and if you were caught then you certainly knew about it and even having a quick drag on the way home got you several detentions or the cane if caught. Mind you I have to say it still did not stop me smoking, I stopped much later in life. I know some school children stay on at school after 16 so can smoke but does that mean the school still have to stand by and allow it?
  
  Raising the age to 18 to purchase and smoke cigarettes may have been a far better idea than that of pretending they are not there.

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