Cash boost to help smokers quit

Scotland has some 1.1 million smokers

Ministers will more than treble the amount of money they hand out to help smokers kick the habit.

Health boards currently receive £3m for their smoking cessation programmes.

That figure will rise to £7m in 2005/06; by 2006/07 it will be £9m and in 2007/08 some £11m will be spent trying to encourage people to quit.

The Scottish Executive also said cessation clinics would be made more accessible by being established in places like bingo halls and pubs.

The announcement was made on Wednesday, No Smoking Day, by First Minister Jack McConnell.

Late last year, MSPs voted to ban smoking in all public places in Scotland by March next year.

'Change their lives'

Mr McConnell said: "Our decision to ban smoking in enclosed public places sent out the clearest possible signal about tackling our appalling health record.

"Today, on No Smoking Day, we send out another signal.

"We say to thousands of Scots who want to stop smoking that they can change their life for good and that we will do whatever we can to support them."

Mr McConnell was speaking at St Johns Hospital, Livingston, where he met a group of pregnant women who have successfully stopped smoking.

Scotland's smoking ban is due to come into force in 2006

Scotland has approximately 1.1 million smokers and the executive is aiming to encourage two per cent, or about 65,000, of those to give up by 2010.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) has questioned the health benefits of the proposed ban.

It said smoking rates had risen in two countries which took similar steps - but ministers disputed the figures.

At its annual conference in St Andrews on Tuesday, the SLTA said the statistics went against the downward trend seen in Ireland and Norway before bans were introduced.

In Ireland, where smoking was outlawed in March 2004, the number of male adult smokers rose from 35% to 37% within 2004 and there was a rise from 37% to 38% over the same period for female adult smokers.

Home smokers

In Norway, where the ban came into effect in June 2004, the prevalence of smokers aged 16 to 24 years of age increased from 22.8% to 23.7% between 2003 and 2004.

SLTA chief executive Paul Waterson asked if the proposed ban on smoking in public places in Scotland would help reduce the ill-effects of smoking when it is introduced in 2006.

Mr Waterson, whose organisation represents almost 2,000 independent pub owners north of the border, said: "This begs the question as to whether smoking bans actually solve any health problems or whether they simply lead to more people smoking at home rather than in the pub."

Ways to quit

Two charities, ASH Scotland and Cancer Research UK, held a clinic at Holyrood on Wednesday to offer advice about giving up cigarettes.

ASH Scotland's chief executive, Maureen Moore, said raising awareness of "smoking cessation services" was one of the aims of No Smoking Day.

Jean King, of Cancer Research UK, added: "Getting support for stopping smoking increases your chance of success fourfold - so this additional investment is great news for Scotland's smokers."

Calls to Health Scotland's Smokeline rose by 53% over the last year, it also emerged on Wednesday.

Record numbers of people contacted the service, which offers professional advice on the best way to quit.

Smokeline refers hundreds of smokers to their local cessation services each week.