Medical Specialists® Pharmacy are proud to support this year’s national No Smoking Day, which will be taking place on 11 March.
For those not aware of its origins, No Smoking Day is an annual
campaign that has been running since Ash Wednesday in 1983, when it was
known as ‘Quit for the Day’, although despite the name, it is obvious
this one day is intended to be a sampler / springboard for a longer-term
and more permanent quitting of smoking.
The campaign was initially led by a
charity bearing the same name that operated in London with only four
full-time staff, until it was then merged with the British Heart
Foundation in 2011. The funds are provided by coalition of governmental
and voluntary sector organisations looking to improve the nation’s
health.
Each year there are an estimated one million smokers that use No
Smoking Day to try and stop smoking. The No Smoking Day charity has
previously claimed that about 1.5 million smokers have successfully
managed to quit for good since its launch 32 years ago.
After experiencing a recent surge in the requests for smoking cessation treatment Champix,
Medical Specialists® believe that this year, there could be potentially
significantly more than just one million people trying to give up the
cigarettes in Britain.
What the campaign doesn’t do is attempt to harass or force smokers
into immediately stopping for good – the day is primarily for those
smokers that want to quit, in addition to providing support prior to and
after No Smoking Day, with the British Heart Foundation website
offering information on national helplines, local stop smoking services
and the chance to join a support forum.
The forum is an excellent way to get in touch with thousands of other
fellow smokers looking to quit and lets people know they are not alone
in their efforts to stub out. The forum is even moderated by ex-smokers
that have successfully given up themselves.
As the name of the charity would suggest, the British Heart
Foundation use their knowledge and resources to boost the public’s heart
health, and provide information on the damage smoking does to the body,
even detailing some of the toxic chemicals that smokers inhale with
each passing cigarette – it certainly makes for grim reading.
The fact remains that smokers are at double the risk of suffering
from a heart attack compared to people that have never smoked and
smoking is the main cause of a multitude of cancers and lung disease.
Even with these health risks, some people still refuse to stop
smoking. This could explain why last year the British Heart Foundation
chose to reach out to smokers in other ways – namely highlighting the
financial benefits of stopping smoking.
With the current financial climate, it is simply unfeasible to be
regularly forking out £10 for a packet of cigarettes and skimp on food
or even withhold paying bills.
The British Heart Foundation have even detailed what people could
treat themselves to with the money saved from not buying cigarettes*.
For example, after…
1 Day – £8.50: two movie rentals / a new lipstick / download a new album
1 week – £59.50: a family cinema trip/ a pair of shoes / a meal for two
1 month – £255: a shopping spree / Premiership football tickets / a weekend break
3 months – £765
6 months – £1,530: a leather suite/ a home cinema / a top of the range bicycle
1 year – £3,102.50: a new kitchen / designer jewellery / holiday of a lifetime
*Figures based on a 20-a-day smoker paying £8.50 per packet of 20 cigarettes.
And if that wasn’t music to the ears of smokers, by quitting smoking
they will earn extra pocket money on top of that already saved!
Ex-smokers may now suddenly discover that life, home and car insurance
are cheaper due to then being a non-smoker.
Medical Specialists® wish all smokers the best of luck for next weeks
No Smoking Day. There is plenty of help at hand, from the British Heart
Foundation’s ‘I want to quit’ page,
their links to a forum and various nationwide stop smoking services, to
smoking cessation treatment from Medical Specialists® like Champix, for
a more longer term quitting strategy. This treatment can be obtained by
an online consultation with one of our GMC-registered doctors, or by
sending us a private prescription.
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