I heard on the news yesterday that in England and Wales they are looking to ban the display of cigs behind shop counters, they will (in around 2013) soon need to be kept hidden, to stop younger people taking it up. They already do something like this in Scotland. I have 2 problems with it and I'd like to ask the smokers here 2 questions :

When you got started, what made you?
- Almost everyone I know got started via peer pressure. I know no one who went into a shop, seen the smokes and thought "Hey, I think I will try smoking".

Have you ever went into a shop to get something non smoke related, then got to the counter, seen the smokes and thought "I wasn't going to but now that I see them, I will have some smokes too"?
- Everyone I know who goes to a shop and comes out with a pack of smokes went to the shop with the main goal of buying smokes. If you have smokes, you don't buy em, unless you think you will run out soon. If you don't you buy em.

The government say other countries who do this have seen the rates of young smokers drop by 10%. Therefore a casual relationship must exist (which I'd like to know more about). However these are British teenagers, who are by far and a way the worst in Europe. And unless we do things differently where I come from, I see no reason for this move to ban the display, I fail to see how it will acheive the desired result.