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In a bid to cut down on what the Canadian government claims leads to “nasty” smoking habits, stores who sell cigarettes must now “hide” them from customers. We wondered, once cigarettes are hidden from consumers, would this translate to “out of sight, out of mind”? We looked at the granddaddy of all “vice” measures, Prohibition, so “out of sight” that everything related to drinking was criminalized, whether it was effective in curbing the “vice” of drinking.

According to Reuters it’s known as “de-normalizing the presence of cigarettes”. Shopkeepers must now relocate the stigmatized packages of cigarettes behind grey wall coverings or in drawers despite the fact that liquor and porn will still be boldly displayed on shelves.

One Toronto shopkeeper called it a “pain in the ass and a double-standard that the government supports liquor sales”. Retailers are calling the measure, hypocritical, inconvenient, and costly, as the store owners are responsible for paying for the “grey wall” mandated by the government.

Will “hiding” cigarettes lead to less smoking?

We took a look at the period in the United States known as Prohibition, a movement which sought to outlaw drinking and which led to an actual Amendment to the Constitution.

The 18th Amendment stripped licenses to do business in the alcohol industry from those who produced alcoholic beverages: brewers, distillers, and vintners; plus those who were on the retail end, the wholesalers and retailers and those involved in transporting the now illegal product. The Amendment was enacted on January 16, 1919.

According to About.com, the 18th Amendment was on the books until it was ended 14 years later in 1933 by the 21st Amendment and it was the only Amendment to have ever suffer the embarrassment of being “repealed”.

The Canadian measure of hiding cigarettes from customers in retail settings is perhaps one of a series of steps to eventually ban cigarette sales or to “shame” customers, such as Great Britain’s latest idea, to have all cigarette brands rewrapped in a “plain” packaging with “graphic health warnings” and to force smokers to pay an annual license of £200. This guarantees the government the right to label a British taxpaying citizen who isn’t breaking the law a “registered addict”.

These and other measures, such as raising taxes, are designed to shame and stigmatize smokers into kicking the “nasty” habit. Prohibition went further, turning those who sold spirits into criminals by stripping away their license to do business. This was the ultimate of all measures and you’d think it would have been the one to finally “get the job done”. That is, the original goal, to get people to stop drinking by making the process, from start to finish, illegal. No more advertising, taxes, hiding the liquor bottles behind walls, the Temperance League and Prohibition Movement sought to drive drinking out of existence, that once the product was no longer available, drinking would lose its luster. In other words, out of sight, out of mind.

The Prohibition Movement expected the temperance effect of taking the product away from tax paying citizens to take hold after a period of 30 years of state sponsored sobriety. Instead it was 14 years of “bathtub gin”, revenuers, and gang wars plus those who produced alcoholic beverages illegally, speakeasies and illegal “drinking” clubs, as citizens rebelled against the anti-drinking draconian measures. The attempt at “criminalizing” drinkers had failed. Even so the movement claimed victory as “drinking” had declined “dramatically” under Prohibition. Of course it had, it was illegal, those who were caught imbibing were thrown in the local pokey, those who were caught producing, a stint in jail. Those who were caught transporting the stuff, prison.

The prohibition movement didn’t just ban liquor sales they also “shamed” the consumers of alcoholic beverages. The government, by making liquor illegal, had turned into the ultimate “nanny state”. Tax paying citizens had learned a big lesson, that government could be used by some as a “tool” to punish others, especially in regards to the magic word, vices, you know, all those things we do that are “bad” for us, such as drinking, smoking, and gambling.

The Prohibition Movement sought to protect people from themselves. Vices and habits were under attack. In the Movement’s eyes, those who drank needed someone else to step in and stop them, “for their own good”. The movement was able to enlist the government in its crusade with enforcement measures that turned ordinary citizens who happened to like to drink, into objects of scorn and ridicule, and even worse, those who were caught drinking, into criminals.

We’re now seeing the very same process in regards to smoking. The only saving grace for cigarettes is that it’s a cash cow to the government in regards of taxes.

Both the federal and the state government tax cigarette sales. In Texas a state tax of $1.41 per pack raised 1.248 billion in 2007. We doubt state and federal governments will ever dump such a convenient cash cow that rakes in billions in revenue. Instead the government will allow such measures as “gradual shaming” where tobacco consumers will eventually be “corralled” into “controlled” areas where they can be “monitored” as registered “users”. Where the product will be “wrapped in plain wrappers” such as those used in the porn industry.

Taxpayers with unhealthy vices are increasingly becoming the country’s “scapegoats”. Smokers today, fat people tomorrow. Perhaps the fact that prohibition now resides in the murky past, of a time where one group of people attempted to turn another group into criminals over what was considered a vice. Now we see the same pattern, this time the finger of shame is pointed squarely at smokers. For those who agree smokers should be punished for their behavior, beware, once the smokers have been taken care of, the nanny-staters will be on the march for the next “project” of “protecting people from themselves” which we predict will be overweight people. And once fat people have been shamed and stigmatized, then which “vice” and the people who imbibe in it be next?

Prohibition, the process of completely removing alcoholic beverages from off the shelf and in people’s homes, a national “de-normalizing”, failed miserably. It may have been out of sight but it was never far from people’s minds. The same applies to tobacco products. Hiding cigars and cigarettes behind grey walls or packaging them in plain wrappers will not keep people from buying them but what it will do is attempt to “stigmatize” and “shame” those who purchase those products. We say, shame on those who do the shaming. And shame on those who want to turn citizens into criminals over “behavior” they deem offensive in the guise of “protecting” them.

We find this type of “behavior” doubly offensive.

By LBG

Image - Prohibition Cartoon
Source - Smokers Club - Tobacco Industry: UK Charge Smokers for right to buy cigarettes
Source - Reuters - Cigarettes whisked out of sight at Canadian stores