Background ¦ Your reaction

The Background:

Smokers are notoriously stubborn when it comes to ignoring health warnings, but would the thought of impotency make them kick the habit?

Instead of alerting smokers to the dangers of heart disease or cancer, the British Medical Association is pushing for cigarette packets bearing the news "smoking causes male sexual impotence".

It follows American research which claims smokers are twice are likely to suffer impotence than non-smokers.

UK Health Minister Tessa Jowell said that she would be pressing for clear labelling at a European health ministers' meeting which will discuss the issue next week.

Twenty a day could take your sex life away.

Dr Bill O'Neill, tobacco adviser to the BMA, said it was "staggering" that so few smokers realised there was a link between smoking and impotence.

"Young men are notoriously resistant to health warnings and they think they will have given up smoking long before cancer or heart disease catch up with them. But the prospect that they could also wreck their sex lives might just make them stop and think."

Clive Bates, director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), hopes it might be an incentive for men in their 20s to give up.

"It's a reality check on all the style, sex and glamour that is supposed to be associated with smoking. Despite the hype about cigarettes, the truth is sad, embarrassing and banal."

However Martin Ball, campaigns director at Forest, which supports people's right to smoke, said: "Male smokers should keep their peckers up, because the one sure way to ruin your sex life is by becoming an anti-smoking bore."

Background ¦ Your reaction

Your Reaction:

It certainly might convince a few young men to give up, because most delude themselves that they will eventually give up long before they reach the high-risk age for lung cancer or a heart attack. I'm surprised other such tactics to make young men and women realise the harm smoking is doing them TODAY, not in 30 years' time, such as premature ageing (even young smokers start to develop lines around their eyes and mouth much earlier than non-smokers), hair loss (due to poor blood circulation to the scalp), bad breath etc. have no effect.
Patrick Jones, UK

I am a 37-year-old smoker. I believe that if a person's sexual health were threatened they would not smoke. Smoking however is an addiction just like any other drug and should be given all the attention that is required. I have tried to quit smoking on many occasions and it is very difficult. I am afraid of getting fat and there is no support system to aide in the withdrawals. While I may not have quit yet I do keep on trying.
Cheryl, USA

I agree that most smokers are "smart" enough to have long ago assessed the health warnings and yet decided to carry on regardless. Simple insults printed on each packet might not help either, but they would give the rest of us a laugh.
Barry Fell, UK

Nothing stops smokers except wanting to stop. Well, that or dying.
BF, Canada

No amount of warnings will stop smokers. They are well educated enough about the dangers to know that they may die from smoking, but clearly don't care. Neither do I. Let them smoke themselves to death, then the state can save a couple of million quid on pensions. In the meantime the punitive taxes on cigarettes raise a tidy sum for the treasury. They should be feted for their social spirit. Greater love hath no man than to lay down their life for their country.
Chris, UK

Of course not. Smokers are content to choose a route of slow suicide. Why should they be concerned with something as trivial as impotence? Darwin rules, OK?
Elwin Tennant, UK

The only way to stop people form smoking is to ban cigarette manufacturing. It not only affects the health of the person smoking but also people in his surroundings.
P.V.Kishore, India

It sure will send a jolt to non-smokers. It will deter them from smoking as I believe no men would want to be impotent.
Herman, Indonesia

Smokers are constantly in denial about the health risks. But then again, who cares? As long as they don't breathe smoke in my face and provoke my asthma, they can smoke themselves stupid for all I care.
Dom, UK

Smoking is an addiction in the same way as taking drugs is an addiction. Smokers need much more than will power to give up.
Susannah, Australia

If smoking causes impotency, can passive smoking cause impotency? If it does will people in this group be able to take legal action against smokers and the tobacco companies?
Bez, UK

Smokers need to find a giggle reason to enjoy not smoking. If the humour of not being able to get an erection supplies the little giggle that will help them overcome their cravings, then to link smoking with impotence is a grand idea plus a very good laugh for all. As for the physiology of nicotine on erection. A little nicotine raises blood pressure but excess nicotine does the opposite. It is a complex drug with multiple uses. I have ex-smokers tell me that after they quit their appetites for food and sex increases and hopefully this will be motivation for many smokers to quit. Here in Bakersfield, California, the huge billboards of a cowboy with a limp cigarette in his mouth with the word "Impotence" under gives a clear message to all who see it. I think it is an effective message to smokers to move them towards actively trying to quit.
Andy, USA

The tired old myth of impotence borrowed from the anti-pot campaign, how absurd! I noticed no cite on the source of this alleged medical finding. It is alarming how quickly pseudo-science spreads in the media. For example, to date no study outside of the survey (not study) done by the EPA, not an unbiased entity, has found second hand smoke harmful, yet the media repeats this allegation as proven. I don't smoke and I never have, so I am close to objective on these issues. I see it this way: Children can't legally smoke, and adults who choose to should accept responsibility for their choices. It harms only them. But the lies and propaganda harm us all.
W Peak, USA

I do not think that the professional smoker will be put off, they will more think of it as an added advantage, another form of contraception.
John Foster, England

The ads are in place in California so we'll find out for sure soon. But, once the novelty wears off, their impact wears off too. No effect.
Christopher England, USA

It's well-known that cigarettes cause an earlier and usually grossly unpleasant death, but that's not stopped people smoking, and warnings of impotence won't either. But let's stick the warning on anyway. No doubt FOREST will complain. They make me laugh, anyway. Freedom organisation for the right to enjoy smoking tobacco. My eye. How about the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Non-Carcinogenic Air in Public Spaces? When was the last time a non-smoker gave a smoker an asthma attack by exhaling over them?
Guy Chapman, UK

I smoke my brains out and have four healthy boys! This is just another case of phoney science being deployed to make a social point. Yawn.
Mark, USA

Let's just outlaw stupidity and the right to choose to be stupid the world over, sit back and wait for the "New World Order" to tell us which hand to use when visiting the restroom. I'm sure enough studies would eventually reveal that over-use of one hand or the other was somehow going to cause the end of civilisation as we know it.
Odin, USA

Smokers will smoke when they have serious diseases caused by smoking, so impotence will not stop them. The only way to stop smokers is to tax cigarettes heavily to pay for the effects of related diseases.
Mark Lisle, Belgium

Maybe it would - if they had not come up with Viagra....
Setton, Israel

Charles Darwin had said only the fittest will survive. Those who smoke will not be fit and hence will not survive. This warning is sufficient and an impotence warning is redundant.
s.subramanian, Australia

The UK is still a relatively free country, why should others dictate whether you can smoke or not by inferring that it would make you impotent. It is just another of the do-as-I say- brigade scare tactics, let's face it there are far more dangers out there such as alcohol, (drink-driving, etc), disease and famine, war and religion. I would be interested to know where the anti smoking lobby intends to get the tax from tobacco from if it was banned. Because it has to come from somewhere. I would happily stop for a bit if they were personally prepared to except a 200% tax rise.
C. Milne, UK

It is very sad to read the responses from those hopelessly addicted nicotine aficionados who all the while talk about freedom of choice and state interference. Smoking is harmful, expensive, obnoxious, smelly, messy, poisonous and downright evil no matter how much you try to defend it. Unfortunately those most vulnerable are in their mid to late teens or early twenties when life seems endless and concerns over poor health and other smoking related ailments in later years are so far away as to make little or no impact upon present day decisions.
Neil Ashurst, Ghana (UK expat)

I gave up smoking seven moths ago. One of the reasons why I did was because I heard about it making you impotent. It's not happened yet, but for me was a major incentive to give up. Stupid habit anyway!!
Tom Pakenham, Britain

If there is a connection between smoking and male impotence, and I for one have my doubts, surely it is only the really heavy smokers, the 40-50 a day crowd, who are at risk. I'm sure the US survey was based largely on this group. I've smoked 10-20 cigarettes a day for the last 30 years and I've yet to experience any difficulties. Touch wood!
P. G. James, England

I believe that people do not respond to warnings but wait for the consequences before acting. Therefore the warning itself is the weak point and not how it is expressed.
John Cargill, Pakistan

Official warnings have little or no credibility. If the possibility of this problem had been started as a rumour, and categorically denied by government officials, then smokers might have been worried.
N Payne, England

An impotent man is no man; that should stop him from smoking.
Chethan, India

If watching pregnant mothers smoking in the high street is anything to go by, this will have no effect at all.
Hugh Routley, UK

If smoking is going to cause impotency, then I can't see how my uncle has three kids and still 'going strong'.
Tony, Singapore

Anti-smoking campaigns have gotten so ridiculous, I'm surprised they're not trying to tell us it'll fall off.
Mort Potter, USA

Smokers are a determined bunch of idiots! I think any warning, short of instant death, would be ignored! And even then they would ask for a last puff.
Russell, USA

There is no doubt in my mind that smoking kills as my wife died from lung cancer and she was only a passive smoker but warnings about impotence from smoking will only have an effect on smokers who care about living I fear.
Sjarifuddin Zaluski, Indonesia

Smokers are not deterred by the high possibility of death by cancer, so why does anyone think that impotence is suddenly going to put them off ?
Nicholas, UK

Isn't the world a sad place, after the continued warnings over the danger of smoking, and as student, I have to witness a steady increase in the number of people just starting it.... and yet these further warnings about smoking causing male impotence will still not have a significant difference
Michele Williams, UK

Targeting young men with this campaign in 'no nonsense' and to the point terminology WILL work - Where better to start - just as boys become interested in sex tell them that smoking will affect how good they are at it - why not target young women too - "Do you want a boyfriend who might not be able to....."
Robert Powell, UK

Given the worldwide frenzy over Viagra, there is a good chance that many people will sit up and take notice. Moreover, the warning may even have a psychological effect on some healthy smokers, making them feel that they aren't performing properly even when they are. In view of these, it's always worth a try!
Siow Tian Rui, Singapore

If coughing up a blackened lung does not deter smokers from lighting up, a "little" thing like impotence will scarcely be noticed. I'm surprised smokers get any action at all.
Rath Andor, USA

Hardly, I think. From what I have observed, the relationship between a smoker and his or her cigarette is a sensual, even erotic, one. It seems to me smoking is in many ways a substitute for sex. Why worry about getting it up, when you can always light one up?
R. McNaughton Phillips, USA

I, at 51, smoke 20+ a day and so far my sex life is OK. However, I would like to kick the habit away.
Philip A. Ransley, Malta

If the research is correct, women everywhere have the perfect defence when they are tired of being chatted up by randy men: offer him a cigarette.
Linda Hillsgate, England

Nothing else has deterred this determined band of body abusers. Why should an impotence warning make any difference, they would simply shrug and light up!
Jeff Dray, England

Just another way of inflicting "Political Correctness" onto a minority - has anyone spotted the rising fascist tendencies? Where would the so-called National Health "Service" be without revenue generated from smokers. As a soon to be father, I can safely guarantee smoking has not affected my potency - modern attitudes causes flaccidity!
John Paynter, UK

It's just another piece of propaganda. I'll not take any notice and neither will all my mates who smoke.
Dan, UK

I think the only thing that will ever stop people smoking is if there was to be some sort of illness experienced when still young. Because people are always talking 30 years or more down the line smokers think that it will never happen to them - that or they'll give up in a few years' time. Even if smokers were told that you could smoke 1000 cigarettes and then you die, smokers would just savour the last one and say "what the hell", whilst their kids are crying "stop".
D Green, England

For me, the argument is irrelevant. Smoking is repulsive. I would never kiss a smoker, never mind go to bed with them!
Rachel Williams, UK

If telling people that they will die doesn't stop them smoking then telling them they may suffer from impotency will not bother many.
Louis, England

I'd say so ..... we all know what part of the anatomy the male of the species thinks with - so of course he will do what he can to protect it!!
Emma, UK

I am a smoker who is trying to give up the loser's habit. Any fact such as risking impotence helps to strengthen my resolve. I have not smoked for two weeks but have very strong cravings for a cig. These facts help to combat the cravings which I know one day will go.
Richard West, UK

Smoking is a disgusting habit that should be banned. I personally cannot see why anyone would risk lung cancer, a host of bronchial problems, and now impotence in order to look big and clever, which is the reason most people start in the first place.
Mark Verth, UK

Smokers who haven't experienced impotence will not give up. Those that have, probably will.
Mike, UK

If people haven't been able to give up smoking so far with the kind of blitz going on in a lot of governments including the Singapore government, the threat of impotence is hardly likely to make them do it now.
Peter Tan, Singapore

If death can't stop it, why will impotence?
Anil, India

This is just another attempt of New Labour's nanny state to meddle with people's personal lives. All health campaigns in Britain seem to be organised with the idea to make people feel guilty, and not to inform them of the risks and leave them make their own decision to smoke or not. The same applies to the moaning of different anti-drinking organisation that people drink too much. Basically personal habits are something private and the state should mind its own business.
Nick, UK

Perhaps all those cartoons showing old men with a cigarette drooping out of their mouths contained a hidden message we failed to heed!
Tony Smith, UK

If you are a smoker nothing can stop you if you want a cigarette. You are addicted. I wish that I had known how difficult it was to stop smoking all those years ago.
Elaine, UK

Is fear of impotence enough to dissuade young men from smoking? Some, maybe. How about the suggestion that cigarette tobacco has been genetically modified? Pretty scary, and politically correct, too.
Rory Harden, UK

As warnings about smoking when pregnant don't seem to work judging by the number of pregnant women who smoke, I can't see that anything will stop people smoking unless they want to stop!
D Wright, UK

I think illustrating the problems of smoking by emphasising its potentially damaging effects on ones sex life is the best way to deter younger smokers. Telling young women they'll end up wrinkled old crones and young men they'll have the sexual performance of an octogenarian by the time they're in their mid-twenties might be more effective than warning that they may die in twenty or thirty years time.
Tim Smith, UK

As a 20-year-old man myself, I think that warnings about impotence would have a greater effect on young men smoking than anything else. Warnings about heart disease sound very hollow to us, as we're not well aware of our own mortality. Young men would be terrified of losing their pride and joy, and young women would be put off those who carried around a signal that they could be impotent. I would definitely be persuaded to give up.
Stewart Morris, UK

Losing a lung at age 50. Not that bad.
Not being able to get your leg over - DISASTER.
That's men for you.
Chris (non-smoker), England

I've smoked nearly all my life (56 years) and I've never suffered any problems in the trouser department! Admittedly, I have suffered some minor ailments and my lungs aren't what they used to be, but I'm just as capable now as when I had the sap of youth flowing through my veins. People will be trying to make us stop eating meat soon - this is a free country!
H Janus, England

Any action that may stop even one person smoking is worth trying. I am fed up with the pro-smoking lobby using the freedom of expression argument. Smoking should be banned not only inside public places but also outside. Even inside the home smokers have no right to damage the health of other family members, especially children. As Isaac Asimov said, "Your right to smoking stops where my nose begins".
Graham Howard, USA (British)

If people are dumb enough to smoke with all the warnings anyway I think the small fact that they can't get an erection will have no effect on their small brains.
Ciaran Brosnan, Ireland

I don't think that the warnings would stop established smokers, however I suppose there may be a slim chance that it would stop teenagers/youngsters from taking up the habit.
Margo Walker, Scotland

I don't think anything could help me quit smoking.
Jeremy Davies, UK

Final Votes:

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