The negative health impacts of smoking are well known.
If there is anyone left out there who fails to acknowledge the relationship between smoking and increased risks of cancer, stroke, coronary heart disease, vascular disease, Copd and many other serious conditions they are simply burying their heads in the sand.
Public Health Scotland states that smoking is responsible for more than 33,500 hospital admissions each year and 10,000 deaths.
As such, it is a leading preventable cause of ill-health.
The word preventable is important here. It means the grim status quo does not have to be accepted as inevitable.
Smoking cessation work has gone on for a number of decades in Scotland and saved countless lives.
The latest measure to stem this country’s dirty habit is a new law – backed up with fines of up to £1,000 – which puts a ban on smoking within 15 metres of NHS hospital buildings.
For many it is a progressive and obvious next step to take to discourage smoking, especially around healthcare environments.
From today it is an offence to smoke within 15m of any hospital building in Scotland. Experience from the smoking ban inside buildings was that smokers stopped smoking indoors, and moved outside, with few prosecutions required. Will this be the same?
https://t.co/RwqzoMZnq3— Tom Fardon (@DundeeChest) September 5, 2022
But for others it is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. And one that discriminates against those who have a long-established habit, including hospital staff and those who are in palliative care and have no incentive to break their habit.
But the truth is there is no perfect time for taking such a measure.
That line has now been drawn and smokers and non-smokers alike will simply have to get used to it.
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