Smoking

About one in three people smoke in the UK. All the time, tobacco companies are on the look out for new consumers to replace the 320 smokers who die every day in Britain.


Here are some cheery stats to fill in the picture:

1. Smoking is the greatest single cause of ill health and premature death in the UK
2. Smoking kills 120,000 people each year in the UK, compared to 5000 in road accidents.
3. Overall, smoking increases the risk of impotence by around 50% for men in their 30s and
4. Smoking causes:
- one-third of all cancer deaths
- four out of five lung cancer deaths
- four out of five deaths from bronchitis and emphysema
- one in four deaths from heart disease
5. No part of the body is unaffected. Two thousand arms and legs are amputated every year in the UK as a direct result of smoking.

How do you give up?

There are some really important things that can enable you to have the best chance of giving up

Work with your practice nurse or join a group. You can do that by ringing the NHS smoking health line, for details of your local service on the number listed below. Alternatively, ring the medical practice where you are registered, and inquire about smoking cessation programmes.


Be open to using Nicotene Replacement Therapy and Ziban

(Buproprion). A lot of men feel they should be able to do it on their own. The evidence is that they are much more likely to succeed if they minimise the effects of withdrawals by using these methods.
Set a quit date, and the day before, get rid of all cigarettes, ashtrays and let people know what you are doing.


Do it with someone, either a partner or friend, which makes you accountable to someone and also provides support.
Be aware of time when you may want to have a cigarette, such as during times of stress, at the pub, or the first thing in the morning, and have a strategy to deal with this.

An argument for a smoke free environment from David Reed

To individuals who claim that we do not need to protect workers in bars and restaurants from the health risks of other people's smoke because "workers are free to choose their places of employment". If this is a rational argument, why do we bother with health and safety in the workplace?

This trite argument has been used repeatedly over the centuries by lazy and greedy employers to avoid the cost of providing a safe workplace. It was used by the owners of lead mines in the eighteenth century and coal mine owners in the Victorian era. It was used in the twentieth century by builders trying to avoid the cost of dealing properly with asbestos. Shall we extend the logic? - why make nuclear power stations safe for the workers, people aren't forced to work there.

Bar workers, casino workers and waiters have as much right to work in a safe environment as the journalists on the Independent. They are among the lowest paid, least advantaged, least union- represented workers in our workforce. The asthmatic single mum, possibly pregnant, who has to do a smoky bar job in the evening to make ends meet has no real choice about where she works. She is forced to make a choice between money and her health. In the 21st century, this should not be the case. Nobody should be forced to breathe other people's smoke to hold a job.


We know from recent research that there is a substantial and measurable increase in dangerous tobacco chemicals in the blood of non-smoking bar workers between the beginning and end of their shift. We also know that ventilation is not capable of removing these chemicals. The Royal College of Physicians has published research findings that around 700 people a year die because of exposure to tobacco smoke pollution in the workplace. This is scandalous
You say that people are not forced to work in smoky places. By the same logic, smokers are not forced to smoke in enclosed workplaces. In any conflict of rights, we need to ask which is the more fundamental right. Surely the right to work in an environment not polluted by tobacco smoke is the fundamental. Why? Because the smoker can wait to smoke: the asthmatic cannot wait to breathe

This conflict is simply part of the long battle to provide a safe working environment for ordinary people, which has nearly always been resisted by employers, governments and many newspapers. In the 1870's a Times leader stated that a few cases of typhoid were a small price to pay to avoid the state interference of Disraeli's first great Public Health Act of 1875, which required local authorities to provide drainage sewers and a safe water supply. Would we now criticise this Act as an example of the "nanny state"? I hope that in future years, when we give workers the protection they need and deserve, we will quote The Independent's editorial with similar amazement.