Madam, – Ann Marie Hourihane (Opinion, November 1st) suggests it is a medical fact that occasional smoking won’t do you any harm. When half of all smokers will be killed by their addiction, the Irish Heart Foundation cannot allow the view to prevail that occasional smoking is doing no damage.
What the article fails to capture is the misery which smoking causes to the individuals in the form of heart attacks, lung and other cancers, emphysema, stroke and other painful, life-shortening diseases, which are the cause of 6,000 smoking-related deaths each year in Ireland.
Trivialising an addiction which costs the health system €2 billion each year, the article promulgates some of the well-worn myths about smoking: a few cigs, every couple of days won’t do you any damage; it’ll help you stay thin; and all the celebrities are at it too. Instead, what is true is that every single cigarette causes harm and 16 Irish smokers die every day from the effects of their smoking.
Physiology and genetics will ultimately determine how each cigarette affects an individual. But by any reckoning, being an occasional smoker is no fun: tobacco smoke contains cancer-causing chemicals – carcinogens, cyanide, arsenic and many other toxic substances; every breath attacks the lungs; and damage to the arteries starts with the first cigarette.
Quitting smoking, including occasional cigarettes, is the single most important thing a person can do to improve their health. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette. We have to encourage people to stop. – Yours, etc,