Tobacco clinics an intrusion

Published on 09/03/2005 11:58

THE first Government health warning about the harmful effects of tobacco came a lot sooner than might be assumed. In 1604, James VI and I wrote in his Counterblaste to Tobacco that smoking was a custom not only loathsome to the eye and hateful to the nose, but "harmful to the brain" and "dangerous to the lungs".

Even a man in such an exalted position as the King could not have realised just how prescient his views would become. Today, in a society which is increasingly preoccupied by issues of health and lifestyle, there can be very few people who remain unaware of the medically proven fact that smoking is bad for you; it increases the risk of cancer, heart disease, and stroke. It not only costs smokers dear, it gives the NHS around 35,000 hospital admissions a year, at an estimated cost of 200 million.

In the face of such evidence, it would be ridiculous to suggest that smokers should not be encouraged to quit, and according to the Executive, seven out of ten of them would like to do so. The NHS offers support to smokers, and today on National No Smoking Day, smokers will be bombarded with advice.

Now the Executive wants to set up smoking cessation clinics in pubs and bingo halls in a fresh bid to persuade people to quit. This initiative seems rather pointless when, provided that the Executive gets its way, smoking in pubs and even private clubs will be outlawed from next year. Meanwhile the natural reaction of most smokers will be that smoking cessation classes are an unnecessary intrusion into their leisure time; if they have gone to the pub for a quiet drink and a cigarette, they don’t want a lecture about their unhealthy lifestyles.

The Executive has a moral - and no doubt legal - responsibility to ensure people are aware of the facts about smoking, and support should be made available when people make the choice to quit. But setting up clinics in pubs and bingo halls is taking the nannying tendencies of the Executive too far.