A TOBACCO company's push to sell cigarettes in fashion stores has been denounced as a "cynical" marketing ploy aimed at recruiting a new generation of smokers, sparking calls for a nationwide examination of cigarette retailing laws.
Anti-smoking advocates are outraged that financial incentiveshave been offered to fashion retailers to stock the Peter Stuyvesant brand in several high-end stores.
One retailer, Adrian Dorsey, told The Australian yesterday he was approached and offered about $1000 a year to stock the cigarettes in his clothing store, Zero, in the fashionable Adelaide beachside suburb of Glenelg.
"They're trying to make it look classy," he said of Imperial Tobacco's marketing bid.
At least six Adelaide outlets, among them a hair salon, have reportedly been identified as stocking Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes.
Quit Victoria executive director Fiona Sharkie said the tobacco industry's entry into Adelaide fashion stores was the first time she had heard of such a move in the country.
"It's a blatant strategy to recruit young people into smoking because they know, when you consider one out of every two long-term smokers die, you have to constantly recruit new smokers," she said.
South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon said payments for stores to stock cigarettes should be prohibited. "It's at the very least a very cynical piece of marketing."
