Smoking advisers expect quit rush
ANTI-SMOKING advisers in Plymouth are gearing up for a rush of calls after graphic pictures of the effects of the habit are published on cigarette packets.
Fifteen pictures, including gruesome images of throat cancer and rotting teeth accompanied by blunt warnings, will start to appear on packets of cigarettes across the country from Wednesday.
Among the other images smokers will see are rotting lungs, a corpse in a morgue and a body cut open during surgery as Britain becomes the first country in the European Union to put warning pictures on packets.
Manufacturers are forced by law to put the images on new packets from October 1 and they become compulsory on all packets by October 2009.
The Plymouth NHS Stop Smoking Service has backed the images and is preparing for increased calls from smokers wanting to kick the habit.
Advisers are already busy helping smokers who have been encouraged to quit by last year's ban on smoking in public places.
Service manager Russ Moody said: "The images are graphic, but I support them because the evidence shows that people do tend to quit smoking when they see these sort of warnings.
"I sympathise with smokers who feel uncomfortable and who feel they are being victimised. I also recognise the impetus that it gives people who want to quit and we as a service are here to help those people.
"I feel there are a lot of smokers who are ambivalent about smoking, who are in two minds about trying to give up. Hopefully these images will push them over the edge in terms of helping them to give up.
"We have made provision in our capacity to deal with any influx in demand that we might see. We have changed the way we work."
The service has 14 members of staff but now has a bank of trained advisers on stand-by who can help smokers if enough come forward.
The changes were made in the wake of the smoking ban in public places, which led to a 40 per cent increase in the number of clients contacting the service in its first three months.
Last year the Plymouth NHS Stop Smoking Service helped 2,120 people to quit smoking.
Canada was the first country to introduce picture warnings in 2001.
Research a year later found 31 per cent of ex-smokers said the images had motivated them to quit the habit while 27 per cent said they had helped them to remain non-smokers, according to the Department of Health.
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12 Comments
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by D, Plymouth
Thursday, October 02 2008, 9:33PM
“Waste of money, time and ink, smokers will be suing the government for false advertising, if they don¿t get lung cancer as advertised on the box
When are they going advertise the army with pictures of men with limbs blown off and their gut¿s hanging out?”
by John, London
Wednesday, October 01 2008, 11:22PM
“Scare tactics costing the tax payer millions one again. This money would be better spent on genuine cancer research. In California the smoking rates fell steeply but lung cancer didn't. It looks like Glantz and his fanatics screwed up somewhere.”
by Owl, London
Wednesday, October 01 2008, 11:16PM
“As the rate of smoking in California has gone down, the rate of lung cancer has not. Why?
Could it be that smoking, passive or otherwise is not the culprit?
If the millions (billion?) that are wasted on these scare mongering tactics were put into genuine research we might even get somewhere.”
by marley, manchester
Wednesday, October 01 2008, 12:30PM
“Who do these digusting bastards think they are to inflict these images on women and children. Smokers will just laugh at them for the propaganda that they are.”
by Thomas, Thunder Bay, Ont.
Tuesday, September 30 2008, 3:24AM
“I like drinking and smoking.
Any objections??”
by Spanner, Channel Isles
Monday, September 29 2008, 7:59PM
“Abs Fab idea. We could have a photo of £130bn in taxpayers (families) cashbeing burnt on Alistair Darlings Downing Street premises to shore up rotten banks then a Labour rose being trodden on on balls-up Browns door for Labours chances at the next election.
The Labour manifesto, which promised no all-out smoking ban, a referendum before moving into the EEC and not raiding peoples pensions could be printed on torn up shreds because it isn't worth the paper it's written on.
You've a 1 in 300 chance of contracting a disease or illness from an NHS hospital which is more dangerous than smoking 20 a day for 4 or 5 decades so we can have public health warnings slapped against all NHS adverts.
Finally how about mobile picture messages of ordinary citizens being jailed as Labour have criminalised everyday life with 1,600 new laws a year on trivia such as dropping sausage rolls (enviro-crime unit), letting go a balloon, banning pie fights on health & safety grounds and cuffing people for leaving their bin-lid open by 4 inches.
Brown, Straw, Darling and Harriot Harmen in jack boots would complete the picture - all in the interests of public information.
Great idea Labour.”
by Dee, London
Monday, September 29 2008, 6:54PM
“What a good idea. We should extend this to Food and drink to encourage a healthy lifestyle.
Unhealthy food should have pictures of really over-weight people.
Beer should have pictures of diseased livers, that would put an end to binge drinking.”
by Molly, Sutton
Monday, September 29 2008, 6:50PM
“Perhaps ciggies should only be sold in pharmacies with a script from the GP who would have to confirm that he had counselled the recalcitrant smoker on the evils and dangers and offered patches etc.”
by chas, Little Britain
Monday, September 29 2008, 6:28PM
“We are bombarded everyday and everywhere with health warnings. People no longer take any notice of them. It is called health warning fatigue.”
by mandy, cambs
Monday, September 29 2008, 5:52PM
“It also did not work in Canada after spending millions on these "smoking ban experiments"
http://calsun.canoe.ca:80/News.....6-sun.html
Tue, August 26, 2008
We've spent a lot of money trying to eradicate smoking with limited success, so it's about time we put our dollars elsewhere
UPDATED: 2008-08-26 01:53:34 MST
By MICHAEL PLATT Smoking was supposed to go the way of eight-track tapes and rotary phones.
snip~
So healthy, so promising -- except the future generation isn't quitting.
Indeed, as Health Canada's most recent survey on tobacco use shows, cigarette use isn't declining at all and has remained stagnant for three years. One-in-five Canadians smoked in 2005 and one-in- five Canadians smoke now.
freedom2choose.info for tolerant non-smokers and smokers alike, fighting for choice and truth please join us”