NOW CLOSED Please talk to Cancer Research UK about cigarette branding on packs and how to stop children from starting smoking

[TheOtherHelenMumsnet]

The folks at Cancer Research UK would like to find out what effect Mumsnetters think cigarette branding and packaging has on children.

Cancer Research UK is campaigning for putting cigarettes in plain, standardised packs, because its research shows it will make smoking less appealing to children. So although the campaign isn't aimed at current smokers, the charity is still keen to get a view from everyone.

If you smoke now, did the branding/packaging have any influence on your choice to start smoking or not?

If you have smoked in the past but since quit, what do you remember about the first cigarette brand you tried?

If you're a non-smoker, how do you feel about cigarette packaging? Do you notice it at all?

Finally, do you have any tips to stop children from smoking in the first place? Is this a subject you have discussed with your DC? If so, what did you say/do? If not, how do you think you would address this situation if it arose in the future? Do your children notice or know any brands of cigarettes? If so, how do they know them?

Thanks for taking part,
MNHQ

[Solo]

I don't really notice brand packaging. I have never smoked, never wanted to try and I thank God for that.

I was brought up with both Mum and Dad and both Maternal Grandparents smoking, but my Granddad was by far the heaviest smoker at a 100 a day! He went cold turkey and gave up at about the age of 56, but the effects of smoking had already messed his body up and he had to have a lung removed after it collapsed a year or two later. He lived for a week beyond his 60th birthday as the other lung did the same. Grandma died because of cancer at 64.
My Mum decided that if her Dad could give up, so could she and she did at the same time her Dad did. Never went back to it. My Dad went from roll ups to a pipe and then had to give up for the last time when he developed emphysema. He then was dx'd with lung cancer which killed him.

My Ds, despite watching his hero Granddad die from smoking related illness and me taking him to see The Bodies exhibition and seeing the diseased lungs was goaded into trying to smoke at age 11 and I was pretty mean to him tbh, telling him that his Granddad would be so disappointed in him etc. I don't think he even wants to do it again as he didn't like it (thank God!). Dd thinks it's disgusting and who am I to change her attitude? long may it continue! but she may well have been influenced by me in the first place (she's 5).

I don't think either of them notice branding, though Ds does hang around with his cousin who smokes roll ups!