The downward trend continued right into the 21st Century – but in the past five years it has slowed, stubbornly hovering just above one in five.
Undeterred, the government is launching a hard-hitting media campaign to get people to make the most of those new year resolutions to quit smoking.
But the struggle to reduce smoking below the magical 20% barrier raises an interesting question: is there now a hardcore group of smokers who just won’t or can’t quit?
They just won’t quit[sic] will they? How many times do these puritanical control freaks have to be told; what people imbibe into their own bodies is their business. Smokers are well aware of the risks and choose to take that risk. That is up to them, not the state. The desire to eradicate smoking is akin to the desire to eradicate drinking and hard drugs – doomed to fail and no one else’s business.
Mrs L continues to smoke her rollies although yesterday she was online ordering herself an electro-fag kit, having decided that she would like to give it a try, given that it neatly sidesteps the smoking ban. So much for nanny’s new year’s resolution, eh?
Continually hectoring people to give up is going to provoke resistance. Overly aggressive anti-smoking campaigns are likely to be counter-productive.
A truism that appears to be beyond these cretins.
However, purely anecdotally, every smoker that I know says they would prefer to give up, for two main stated reasons – money and health. I know about ten smokers well, so that’s ten out of ten who would prefer to be free of their chains to the weed, so it is not exactly their “choice” to smoke nowadays but rather their unwanted addiction as a result of a now regretted choice made many years ago. Does that match your own experiences? I wonder if most of the “hard core” just can’t give up, as opposed to not wanting to. I am a non-smoker but am perfectly happy for people to smoke if they wish, but not if their smoke gets up my nose, which nowadays it generally doesn’t.
Mrs L gave up a few years back. She went cold turkey for about six months before resuming. These days, I don’t know that many smokers closely, so can’t really comment on the addiction/choice angle. Either way, it’s no one else’s business as far as I am concerned and I’m inclined to agree with Stephen that the more these people hector, the more likely people will dig their heels in.
“Mrs L continues to smoke her rollies although yesterday she was online ordering herself an electro-fag kit, having decided that she would like to give it a try, given that it neatly sidesteps the smoking ban.”
Coinkidentally, here I am , puffing away on my newly purchased E-Lite menthol as I type. I saw the ad in our Christmas tv rag with a discount code for 200 ciggies worth of refills free with any starter kit, compared the cost to my brand of ciggies and thought rightiho I’ll give it a go.
In just one day my living room smells of lots of other things besides stale smoke. Mainly boy farts and cat/dog smells so not sure that’s a good thing yet.
Strangely, I didn’t wake with that hunger-like craving for a ciggy with morning coffee (as yer do) but puffed on the e-cig anyway as habit. I’ll not drone on about it but I do like it for all sorts of reasons and can’t see me going back to ciggies.
Hope Mrs LR likes it too. For me, it’s opened up a whole new world and I’m amazed at the variety of brands and flavours out there and plenty of others have gone before to do the research and post it online. Happy googling, missus !
Smoking Ban be damned and a middle finger to the puritans. As I said to my quit-6-years-ago father when he suggested I go to the Dr. for free nicotine patches than waste money on an e-cig…”Nooo dad, I’m NOT giving up smoking I’m just going to do it a different way.” 😆
We’ll see when it arrives.
Please do post an update…I’d be interested to know how we compare with me on menthol ciggies and her on baccy rollies.
For me, a decent hit at the back of the throat and the taste/volume of the vapour is the main thing that’s swung it. The rest is just gravy.
I blame the education, education, education system, these Bozos do not understand there is no such thing as perpetual motion.
The principle of diminishing return means a point is reached beyond which level of output falls away from level of input. In other words putting more in does not get any more out. It is logarithmic, not straight line.
Which is a lovely mathematical way of saying, John B, that there will always be some people who want to smoke, just as there will always be some people who want to fight, just as there will always be some people who want to golf in bright check trousers, or have sex with empty bottles or throw themselves off high buildings; and good luck to them all so long as they don’t bother me (golfing in bright check trousers perhaps excepted – that should be banned, it puts me off my putting 🙂
Precisely. Pareto identified this rule with his 80/20 principle. It’s got so near the 20% mark now that the state is simply throwing good money after bad for purely ideological reasons, with little – or even negative – overall effect.
“given that it neatly sidesteps the smoking ban.”
I’d love to use an e-cig in a pub. Unfortunately, I can’t find one that allows it. ‘Oh no’ they say ‘people might think we allow smoking and light up’
How do we know it’s near the 20% mark? How do we know any ‘facts’ relating to smoking other than what we’re told by such august bodies as the DoH, BBC and MSM?
I don’t believe a word! given the number of ‘non smokers’ who keep cadging fags off me when I flash a pack in company it’s nearer 50%! Don’t Euro stats. quote 28% in UK? didn’t Sainsbury’s life insurance state another 8% that smoke but claim not to? That’s 36% already! ‘20%’ is pure garbage.
“I’d love to use an e-cig in a pub.”
How boringly cliche. Be a devil and try it in the Town Hall.
Go on, I dare you 😆
Town Hall? e-cig? pfft! A flame thrower maybe.
There is a huge segment of our public sector, comprising cosy sinecures and generous pensions, for fat-crats whose only function is nagging and scolding the public about smoking, drinking, fat, exercise, red meat, oily fish, salt, sugar, 5 a day, dietary fibre, racism, sexism, and they are like leeches. Their real job is to make sure they never get disbanded. If any of their projects looks like it is tending towards the limit of its usefulness, they absolutely will make stuff up if they have to, to stay on the payroll.
The other issue is that these anti-smoking zealots haven’t taken into account is this: if you tell young people that you must never do this because it’s evil, it’s bad for your ‘elf, that it’ll make you smell and so on, a considerable portion of young people – especially the rebellious ones – will want to know what the fuss is all about. And they will start smoking. They might well even do it in secret, but like sexual repression, it will all end up boiling to the surface eventually.
As for these anti-smoking/anti-drink/anti-fat/anti-life fanatics: fuckity fuck off.
“ … especially the rebellious ones …”
Who, by very virtue of their “rebellious” nature, are often the ones that even the less-rebellious secretly admire – and thus try to emulate. Hence the reason why teenagers the world over have always, historically, indulged in pursuits – any pursuits, whether it’s smoking, drinking, rock ‘n’ roll music, experimenting with drugs or having sex before the sanctity of the marriage bed – that their elders, and their conformist peers, openly disapprove of. After all, what teenager wants to be seen to be like either their gran or the class geek?