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Denmark fights smoking
Every cigarette is harmful. This is the message sent out by the Danish government's most controversial campaign yet.
di Staff
The health authorities have proposed to repeat the scare-campaign ‘Every cigarette is harmful’ that ran from October 2009 to January 2010, after the Danish Health Ministry publicized the positive results.
An evaluation of the campaign reveals that the shocking images of damaged organs that were broadcast caused 40 percent of all smokers to consider quitting after the campaign started. Some ten percent attempted to quit, and three percent managed to quit entirely.
According to the new Cancer Plan, the Danish Health Ministry will spend six million kroner to re-run the campaign in 2011, while providing 2.5 million kroner to finance STOP-Line, a helpline for people wanting to quit smoking.
“The number of smokers has gone down, and we must push forward with our endeavours in this area, regardless of whether this figure is a result of the campaign,” Bertel Haarder, Health Minister, told Berlingske Tidende newspaper.
“We know that a lot of people have been affected by the campaign, so of course it should be repeated in order to contribute to the changing views, where it is no longer cool to stand with a cigarette, but rather, loser-ish.”
Despite the successes of the campaign, there is still opposition to its re-launch.
The campaign has been accused of being a scare campaign that exaggerated the realities, as the broadcast included artificial latex models and the use of technology to produce the confrontational images.
“It is a problem if public authorities make an obvious scare campaign that is factually incorrect. We should abandon these scare tactics and replace them with accurate, serious information. Then people can make their own informed decisions on how to live their lives,” Emil Ammitzbøl, spokesperson for the Liberal Alliance, told Berlingske Tidende.
The Danish Cancer Society supports the campaign’s re-launch, describing last year’s effort as “predominantly positive”, as it sparked great interest in smoking cessation. Despite its success, project leader Niels Them Kjær acknowledged that it was “very aggressive”.
Original article: www.cphpost.dk
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