Information embargoed until midnight on Sunday 25 June 2006
A CHANCE TO SAVE 200,000 LIVES
IMPLICATIONS OF A SMOKE-FREE FUTURE
“Imagine having an opportunity to save 200,000 lives in the UK”, says Professor Robert West, Director of Tobacco Studies at Cancer Research UK, talking today (26th June) at the UK National Smoking Cessation Conference in Newcastle. “The introduction of a ban on smoking in enclosed public places, if implemented, will save over 200,000 lives – and that’s equivalent to the whole of Gateshead, where this conference is being held.”
Drawing on experiences from the US, Ireland and Scotland, Professor West says that the legislation would bring about a 1-2 per cent fall in smoking prevalence, not only preventing this large number of premature deaths, but also preventing the misery of disabling disease for many others. “We worry so much about terrorist threats and huge natural disasters, but these are lives that we know we can save and the opportunity should not be missed,” says Professor West.
These figures do not even include the main beneficiaries of the legislation – the 12.6 million non-smokers who work in places where smoking is allowed on the premises, where scientific evidence clearly shows that in workplaces where smoking is allowed, non-smokers are at an increased risk of heart disease, lung cancer and asthma from second hand smoke.
At the UKNSCC conference, Dr Andrew Hyland, Associate Member, Roswell Park Cancer Institute USA, will share his experiences from New York where a smoking ban was introduced in March 2003. His findings show smoke-free laws work – the air is cleaner, people support the law and it creates an environment that helps smokers who want to quit smoking.
However, he stresses that smoke-free legislation needs to be coupled with public education, increases in tax, and access to proven treatments to have real impact. As Dr Hyland says, “Smoking regulations are a step in the right direction, but they need to be supported by public education campaigns, higher taxation on tobacco and sound smoking cessation services. All these things are essentially a public health vaccine for cancer, heart disease and other diseases caused by tobacco smoke.”
No-where in the world are smoking cessation services more readily and freely accessible to smokers than in the UK. We were the only country to have a national stop smoking service and other countries such as Japan and Taiwan are now following our lead.
The government has set targets to reduce adult smoking rates by 2010 to 21 per cent of the population. “Even this modest target cannot be achieved without a major coordinated effort to step up our tobacco control effort. This means combining smoke-free legislation with other measures known to work: what about 20p on a pack of cigarettes to fund an independent tobacco control task force to help prevent children from starting to smoke and help adults who want to stop to overcome their addiction? says Professor Robert West. “I think most smokers would go for that because they want to stop and don’t want their children to start smoking.”
Figures following the introduction of the smoke-free legislation in Ireland in March 2004 show that 10,000 smokers reported that they had reduced their consumption and 7,000 smokers had quit as a result of smoke-free legislation. Just one month after the ban in Scotland there was a fourfold increase in calls to smokeline and increased sales of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (up by 110% in Glasgow on the previous year). The UK ban promises to make a truly significant impact.
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Editors notes:
- The UK National Smoking Cessation Conference (UKNSCC) is the world’s largest annual gathering of smoking cessation practitioners. Held at the Sage Gateshead conference centre, this year, it runs over two days – Monday 26 June and Tuesday 27 June. Every year the conference attracts speakers from Europe, the US and New Zealand.
- For more information visit www.uknscc.org
- Speakers are available for interviews and filming.
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