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.

The Lancet, the eminent British medical journal, recently published research indicating that women are physiologically more liable to extract carcinogens and other toxic agents from cigarettes than are men. In the past half-century, lung cancer was a predominantly male disease, but this has changed, and it is expected to become a predominantly female disease by 2025.

Smoking tobacco is recognised as the main cause of lung cancer with the result that the need to highlight the danger for young women should be more apparent than ever. Despite a generation of health promotion — along with warnings of the danger of smoking and the determined efforts to de-glamourise the habit by stringent restrictions on advertising — the tobacco industry is still engaging in sophisticated social marketing in order to increase the appeal of cigarettes among young women.

With the advent of the smoking ban, people have become much more aware of the foul odours attached to smoking. When somebody returns to a bar after a smoking break, for instance, others now notice the stale smell to which people had become accustomed in former years.

As a result, cigarette companies are making concerted efforts to deodorise cigarettes with more efficient filters, and they have introduced superslim cigarettes in order to strengthen the link between style and tobacco. They are thereby trying to enhance the appeal of cigarettes among young women. The callous and indifferent intent behind such business tactics should be recognised as lethal.

Cigarettes contain the highly addictive nicotine. The surgeon general in the US has warned that nicotine can be as addictive as heroin. Tobacco smokers should recognise this. Studies indicate that 70% of smokers wish to quit, and women may need different types of support than men to help them overcome their addiction.

The Irish Cancer Society advocates the use of social marketing and guerrilla advertising to prompt young women to try to quit smoking and to direct them to the support services that are available. There should also be a concerted effort to educate all young people, especially girls, about the dangers of smoking.

Those who say that they are “dying for a cigarette” should recognise the truth.