Nine in 10 smokers say they are addicted, 70% want to quit

NINE out of 10 smokers believe they are addicted or would find it hard to quit and those who tried to stop made around four failed attempts, research shows.

It is reckoned about 7,000 people die from smoking every year in Ireland, with millions of euro spent annually by the country’s healthcare system on treating tobacco-related illnesses.

A major international conference on tobacco control taking place in Dublin today will hear calls for more support for tobacco cessation services.

The Irish Cancer Society’s health promotion manager, Norma Cronin, said research showed seven out of 10 smokers want to quit.

She has called for a comprehensive and uniform approach in the provision of tobacco cessation services.

“Such services would encourage and assist the one million smokers living in Ireland to quit and reduce the unacceptably high level of tobacco related deaths,” she said in advance of the second International Conference on Tobacco Control.

Pfizer Healthcare Ireland, one of a number of organisations supporting the event, released research yesterday on Irish attitudes to smoking based on face-to-face interviews with just over 1,000 adults.

Ms Cronin said a worrying statistic was smokers felt they fitted in socially, with 36% of smokers claiming this as opposed to just 27% of non-smokers.

However, the research also found smokers may not be as popular as they believe, especially in the workplace where there is a significant difference in how smokers are perceived as workmates in terms of their productivity. When asked if they thought smokers were less productive than non-smokers, over 63% of non-smokers agreed, with 39% of smokers concurring with the statement.

Other organisations involved in today’s event are ASH Ireland, the Environmental Health Officers’ Association, the Health Service Executive, the Irish Cancer Society, the Irish Heart Foundation, the Irish Thoracic Society, the National Cancer Control Programme and the Tobacco Free Research Institute.

One of the guest speakers is Karen Guitierrez of Global Dialogue for Effective Stop Campaigns who is an expert on how tobacco is marketed.

She believes tobacco companies are marketing aggressively to women throughout the world and public education needs to be equally aggressive.

“We must make women aware of the very serious negative impacts of smoking – the great majority of women know smoking is dangerous but few realise how very bad the impacts can be on them and their children – and we must let them know about the most effective ways to quit smoking,” she said.