There is an organisation in Britain called the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT). They have put out a short film which is part of a training module called ‘Very Brief Advice on Smoking [Cessation]’ which is aimed at people who want to be smoking cessation counsellors.

It’s a very sad film about a young boy whose father died of lung cancer and it’s suggested that if his GP had taken only thirty seconds his life might have been saved: ‘Thirty seconds is all it takes to ask, advise, and inspire someone to stop smoking for good.’

Inspiration has a hard time fighting against the compulsion to smoke that comes from nicotine addiction.

The module seems designed to make people stop smoking through fear of getting lung cancer – and if you’re a smoker you’d better be very afraid of this.

The trouble is that smokers in Britain don’t seem so keen on taking up this kind of help, the numbers of people availing themselves of it being down 23 per cent till March 2015 compared with the previous year.

Indeed, the above-mentioned centre and Acion on Smoking and Health (ASH) have urged that ‘Public Health England must better promote local stop smoking services through mass media campaigns and…Local services should also do more to reach out to groups with high smoking rates, and…the NHS should better support smokers who want to quit by using electronic cigarettes.’

Why is it that with all this help available there is a declining uptake, and smokers just seem to want to carry on smoking?

Has not the time come for cigarettes to be banned?

Text © Gabriel Symonds