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Dr Trevor Mudge, AMA Vice President, with Basil Zempilas and Adrian Barich, Radio 6PR

ZEMPILAS: Dr Trevor Mudge is on the line - he's the Vice-President of the AMA here in WA. And we thought we'd get Trev on the line because of this story Barra - the top 20 leading brands. Are you across this, have you…?

BARICH: I am, and I'm alarmed, Basil. Australians spend more on Coca-Cola and cigarettes than any other supermarket item. The number one and two items that people buy at the supermarket - Coca-Cola number one, cigarettes number two. Don't worry about nappies, don't worry about milk, don't worry about bread, by far and away people spend more money on Coke and cigarettes than anything else.

ZEMPILAS: You've seen the list of the brands, haven't you? Coca-Cola number one, then number two is Longbeach cigarettes, then number three is Winfield cigarettes, then number four is Peter Jackson cigarettes, number five is Horizon cigarettes and at number six, milk.

BARICH: It is incredible. Longbeach and Horizon, you can get, like, the big packs of those.

ZEMPILAS: Yeah.

BARICH: Apparently, you can get the big packs of those, the 50 or so cigarettes, and I think that's the reason.

ZEMPILAS: And then just to finish the top ten off, Benson and Hedges number seven, Huggies nappies number eight, Holiday cigarettes number nine and Tip Top bread number ten. So milk at number six, Tip Top bread at number ten, Coca-Cola at number one, a few Huggies nappies thrown in and the rest are cigarettes - that's incredible. Dr Trevor Mudge, what about that?

MUDGE: It's fairly extraordinary, isn't it?

ZEMPILAS: Yeah.

MUDGE: I mean, it's been said that man shall not live by bread alone but…

ZEMPILAS: Well clearly we're not.

MUDGE: ...surely man shouldn't live on Coca-Cola and cigarettes either.

BARICH: Does this mean that Coca-Cola is more addictive than cigarettes?

MUDGE: Well, it's got caffeine in it so it is addictive, but no, nothing is more addictive than cigarettes.

BARICH: Because you know what blows me away about the cigarette stock, is that after all the health warnings and also the high taxes that we get, you know, cigarettes get slammed with, people still buy them, don't worry about that.

MUDGE: Well, mate, it might blow you away but I've spent a third of my life trying to reduce the incidence of smoking. It's a great disappointment to us as professionals.

ZEMPILAS: So…

MUDGE: And it is a tribute to how addictive nicotine is.

ZEMPILAS: Yeah. Yeah. So what can you do? I mean, why isn't this push working? We've had Quit days, we've had those huge messages on the cigarette packs - I mean, they're virtually the whole cigarette pack now. We have more Quit days, we have Nicorette patches and those sort of things organised, we have the advertisements with tar and all the gunk being wrung out of people's lungs, we've had the advertisements showing how old you look if you smoke and how you can age. None of it seems to work.

MUDGE: No, and I think it doesn't work because adolescents and, with, who are those getting addicted to smoking, think they're immortal. They think they're going to live forever and those anti-smoking messages they think don't apply to them, especially when it's peer group pressure that makes them take it up.

BARICH: Well, it's a pretty poor picture of our shopping priorities really, isn't it, when they go for Coke and cigarettes…

MUDGE: Yeah.

BARICH: Pet food and chocolate are up there, ahead of frozen vegetables, fruit juice, fish, poultry, even milk and bread. And how did Coke get so big? We've been talking about his off-air. I mean, the marketing's magnificent, but is it that good?

MUDGE: The marketing's extraordinary, isn't it? But for it to outstrip milk, I mean, it is pretty extraordinary. I mean, you know, when it comes to your health, things don't go better with Coke.

ZEMPILAS: Trevor, thank you for your time this morning.

MUDGE: You're welcome, guys.

Ends

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