No Smoking

Sir Richard Doll, the scientist who confirmed the link between smoking and lung cancer, died recently in Oxford at the age of 92. Link - story on BBC website

One in five deaths in the UK are said to be smoking related ...

Aren't statistics like that hard to comprehend? I've been putting a few figures together and I recon that around 7500 people die in Greater London every month. Which works out as 1500 deaths brought on by smoking every month. Compare that to 32 road deaths on an average month in London, or a total (from all accidental causes) or around 120. Compare it too with the 80 or so deaths so far this month caused by the bombings in London ....

I'm not a smoker. Fellow pupils at school encouraged me to try and, sure, I had the odd one but - thank goodness - I knew enough / never got addicted / was more frightened of the reaction I would get at home than the humiliation of not smoking from fellow pupils. I can't claim that - 30 years plus - ago it was any stength in my own character that stopped me, but thank goodness the other influences for good did so.

With my own kids, I've always taught them the dangers of smoking but mid-life and later years seem so far away when you're a teenager, don't they? Chris took up smoking; got addicted and smoked for a few years - teens into early 20s. Of all the lifestyle issues that I went through with him, he would - I hope - tell you that quitting smoking was always my top pressure point on him; almost (but not quite) to the extend of me saying "no matter what else you do ...". Chris hasn't smoked for - what - a year or two now. Still gets the craving occasionally, he says. I can't take any significant credit for turning him around - that goes to himself and Delene (and I cannot tell you in what proportion) but I must record my utter delight.

For a company and personal blog such as this, I have a general rule that people's privacy - family, friends, customers and colleagues should be respected. You'll find that I very rarely write idenifiably or deeply about others. I've made an exception today. I'm willing to put my principles to one side if there's the slightest chance that this tiny droplet may pop up on someone's screen and move them - if just a tiny step - away from committing delayed, painful suicide through smoking.
(written 2005-07-27, updated 2006-06-05)

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