The next 10 curbs?
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Your support makes all the difference.You might not get shot for smoking in America but you will be roundly reviled, writes Celia Hall. At best smokers now find themselves regarded with a condescending mixture of pity and incomprehension. Will it happen here? What will be done should the Lung Police prevail?
1. Ban on all tobacco advertising on hoardings, in magazines and newspapers, and at point of sale. Ban on all sports promotion, which would also serve to end indirect tobacco advertising on television.
2. Ban on "glamour" promotions that show fashion models and teenage idols smoking.
3. Life insurers take account of smoking habits. This will be extended to house insurance because of fire risk (smokers' materials are responsible for more deaths in accidental house fires than any other cause) and also to car insurance.
4. All GPs and relevant clinics to offer a range of smoking cessation techniques, including hypnosis and group therapy. All smokers to attend classes and meet regularly with their key worker, the "quit counsellor". Proven quit aids including nicotine patches and gum to be available on prescription.
5. All cigarette packs to be in uniform brown boxes bearing large health warnings and statutory information on tar and nicotine. Only a small maker's name will differentiate the brands. Smokers will use a swipe card that logs their consumption.
6. The existing smoking ban in all health services premises will be enforced. Smokers' day rooms will be fumigated. All health staff will sign a no- smoking pledge and agree to undergo smoking detection tests.
7. No smoking in school and university premises including all staff rooms, bars, hostels and halls of residence.
8. No smoking on any form of public transport: trains, planes, buses, taxis.
9. No smoking in public parks, arboreta or Forestry Commission land (litter and risk of fire).
10. No smoking in restaurants or hotel bedrooms unless in designated rooms or annexes. Pubs to have smoking and no-smoking bars.
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