• 8/9/2006
  • Adelaide, Australia
  • editorial staff
  • AdelaideNow (www.news.com.au)

ThE impact of cigarette smoking on personal health and on the community cost is staggering.

The Cancer Council of Australia lists tobacco smoking as the largest single preventable cause of death and disease in Australia.
Governments and private health groups have a responsibility to do whatever they can to reduce the incidence of smoking and alert people to the possible health implications of cigarette use.

Yesterday, the State Government quite properly announced it was banning smoking in cars to protect passengers, particularly children, and tightening point-of-sale advertising.

It is therefore astonishing that dozens of people have complained about the graphic anti-smoking advertisements promoted by Quit which depict a woman with mouth cancer.

The advertisements are shocking but because they are confronting they work.

In the first week the advertisements were shown on television the calls to Quitline – the special service designed to help people give up smoking – jumped from 220 to 422.

People who complain that children might see the ads miss the point. This is the very target audience which should be exposed to the undeniable dangers of smoking.

As a society we cannot afford to be precious about a social habit which is claiming – according to Cancer Council figures – 19,000 lives a year.

This is 11 times the number of people killed in road accidents.

Smoking leads to a wide range of diseases including many types of cancer, heart disease and strokes, chest and lung illnesses and stomach ulcers.

Smoking is responsible for one in five cancer deaths in Australia.

Research commissioned by the Federal Government has put the cost of tobacco consumption at $12.7 billion a year compared with $4.5 billion for alcohol and $1.7 billion for illicit drugs.

The number of people who smoke cigarettes in Australia continues to fall but the take-up rate among young people remains a matter of concern.

South Australians have been responsible for about 40 per cent of complaints concerning the mouth cancer advertisements.

What isn’t clear is how many of those were smokers who refuse to accept – even now – that smoking is a health hazard.