Left: Anti-smoking poster from 1962 explaining the health risks and featuring the message ‘You have been warned’ (catalogue ref: INF 13/254). You can see more COI anti-smoking posters from the 1960s in our Image Library. The line ‘You have been warned’ was repeated on later posters featuring coffins and graphs illustrating the rising amount of tobacco smoked and the associated increase in deaths from lung cancer. ‘I do not want to conceal from the Ministry that I do not like “You have been warned” which seems likely to be counter-productive and in any case non-factual: but since we are told that it is a ministerial instruction and unalterable, we must of course submit.’ The posters featured the stark message – ‘You have been warned’ – which the Director General of the COI, Sir Thomas Fife Clark, was not in favour of but went along with out of necessity, saying: Right: Notes from a meeting held at COI on 13 March 1962 discussing provision of posters for an anti-smoking campaign (catalogue ref: INF 12/938)Īt the same time, under the instruction of the Ministry of Health, the COI was hurriedly preparing an initial series of three posters illustrating the dangers of smoking. Left: List of advertising agencies without tobacco accounts, drawn up by the Central Office of Information (cataloue ref: INF 12/938). The COI drew up a list of advertising agencies that didn’t hold accounts from tobacco companies, who could potentially advise the government on an anti-smoking campaign without a conflict of interest. A BBC reporter at the time explained that ‘For some weeks now, tobacco shares on the Stock Exchange have been falling in anticipation of this report’ 2 and documents at The National Archives show officials in the Central Office of Information (COI) began discussing advertising campaigns even before the report was published 3. On 7 March 1962 the Royal College of Physicians published ‘Smoking and Health’ 1, a document linking tobacco to cancer and demanding government action. This blog looks at how the government began its long-running campaign to convince us all to take the dangers of smoking seriously. Sixty years ago smoking was a perfectly acceptable social habit which could be carried out in workplaces, pubs, clubs and on public transport. This month is Stoptober – an annual media campaign started by Public Health England in 2012 to encourage people to tackle their addiction to nicotine.
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