Smoke Free Birmingham

Tobacco is still the biggest killer in our communities.  It kills more people than road traffic accidents, suicides, alcohol liver disease, poisoning and overdose, other accidental deaths, murder, manslaughter and HIV put together. [1]

It is a key factor behind heart attacks, stroke, respiratory diseases and cancer.  It kills over 87,000 people in England every year with around 2,000 of these deaths occurring in Birmingham.  It is also a disease of the poor.  Some of our most deprived areas of the city have smoking prevalence rates over 40%.

We cannot afford to stop educating people about the dangers of smoking.

The Department of Health are consulting on the future of tobacco control in England.   Closing date for responses to their consultation is September 8th 2008.  You can view the full consultation at

www.dh.gov.uk/en/consultations/liveconsultations/dh_085120

There are four main areas to the consultation where the Government are seeking views:

• protecting children and young people from smoking
• further action to reduce smoking rates and health inequalities caused by smoking
• Helping smokers to quit
• Helping those who cannot quit

There are two major proposals in the consultation to:

• Restrict access to cigarette vending machines by young people – whether by banning vending machines altogether or through mechanisms identifying the age of the user;
• Keep cigarettes out of sight in shops and restrict advertising in supermarkets and on shop counters.

Other suggestions around what more can be done to continue to reduce harm to health caused by smoking include the following possibilities;

• End sale of packs of 10 cigarettes often used by children
• Introduce plain packaging for cigarettes packets (i.e. no logos or branding)
• restrict the advertising of tobacco products – such as cigarette papers

[1] Mortality statistics, ONS 2002;