Passive smoking campaign

UK cancer charities have welcomed the launch of a new advertising campaign aimed at raising the awareness of passive smoking.

The adverts, which will be used on TV, online, in the press and on posters, illustrate the fact that 85 per cent of the cancer-causing toxins in cigarette smoke are invisible and odourless.  Calling second hand smoke an "invisible killer", public health minister Caroline Flint said, "Smoking is harmful not just to smokers but to the people around them. What this new campaign brings home very clearly is the full impact of second-hand smoke."  Ms Flint continued by saying that she hopes the adverts will show that simply blowing smoke away or aiming a cigarette away from people’s faces does little to avoid passive smoke exposure. 

Jean King, director of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK, said, "The effects of smoking are devastating. Every day in the UK 300 people are killed by a smoking related disease.  We know that the vast majority of smokers want to quit. And we hope this campaign will encourage many to give up for good as well as make non-smokers feel justified in asking other people not to smoke around them.â€?

The government campaign comes just weeks ahead of the ban on smoking in public places in Wales and 4 months ahead of similar legislation in England this summer. The passive smoking initiative comes hot on the heels of a Department of Health campaign earlier this year which graphically illustrated the addictive nature of tobacco by showing smokers being dragged by a fish hook to buy their cigarettes.

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