Dying for a cigarette - Time to stub out scourge of smoking

Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, has been designated National No Smoking Day, and the Irish Cancer Society is launching its first major campaign aimed at young women who smoke tobacco.

It is particularly appropriate that what is essentially a most destructive form of antisocial behaviour should be associated with ashes because of the utter destruction of smoking on so many young lives.

After years of irresponsible advertising in which cigarettes were glamourised, we now find that they have become the greatest killer of young women. More women under the age of 35 are now dying from lung cancer than from breast cancer, and the death rate is increasing at 3% annually.