Smokers regret starting, says CRUK
Saturday, July 21, 2012 at 9:20 YouGov, tobacco control's favourite pollster, has carried out yet another smoking-related survey, this time for Cancer Research UK.
The majority of smokers and ex-smokers – 85 per cent – regret ever starting the potentially deadly habit in the first place, show new data from Cancer Research UK published today (Saturday).
The YouGov survey of 4099 (including 1746 current and ex-smokers) men and women in the UK also showed that over three quarters of these smokers (77 per cent) took up smoking regularly when they were still only teenagers – some as young as 13.
And a third chose to smoke the same brand of cigarettes as their family and friends when they first started buying a specific brand regularly.
This data adds to the growing evidence of support behind Cancer Research UK’s campaign, The Answer is Plain, to remove all glitzy, glamorous branding from cigarette packets while keeping the health warnings.
I'm not going to waste a warm, sunny Saturday morning finding fault with a survey that I'm sure was carried out to YouGov's normal high standards of impartiality, but it would be interesting to know how many current smokers were polled, as opposed to ex-smokers.
Meanwhile a cursory glance at today's media suggests very little appetite for a survey that, in our experience, will have cost about £5,000. No doubt it will be included in CRUK's submission to the plain pack consultation. Thank goodness for that four week extension!
20 days to go ...
Full press release (and video): Most regret ever starting smoking (CRUK)
Reader Comments (12)
Most smokers are likely to regret donating to CRUK, when they find out that much their hard earned cash may have been donated to Ash to bring about smoking bans. Or that their donations may have been used to set up Tobacco Tactics websites run by a Dutch private detective agency, in a bid to silence and intimidate bloggers that disagree with big tobacco control .
I'm a lifelong smoker. How is it after all these years I never get polled? I feel quite left out. And why should I quit? I enjoy smoking.
It always strikes me as almost incomprehensible that those in tobacco control – such as ASH – always use YouGov when getting some survey or poll done with respect to the smoking ban. You will notice that they never use Ipsos-MORI, ICM, Harris Interactive, Populus or ComRes.
Of course this makes sense when you consider that the President of YouGov (sounds too grand) Peter Kellner has previously written in glowing terms about the smoking ban in the Guardian newspaper, whilst of course being on the board of trustees of that august body called ASH. So, no conflict of interest there then?
Hardly surprising that CRUK (Tobacco Control lapdogs.) use YouGov.
I am sure many people regret taking up drinking, eating the last current bun or driving to the shops when they could have walked.
Just to show how trivial these positive answers are the ASH much quoted statistic that most people want to give up smoking runs at about 70%.
However, on the 7th April 2011 I spoke at the BMJ sponsored ‘Is smoking a disease or a habit.’ Antonella Cardone, Public Health Director, Global Smokefree Partnership, Rome stated that too, but she also bemoaned that if you ask the same question, ‘within a month’ the answer falls to 20%. One dreads the per centages if we ask 1 week or today.
http://daveatherton.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/is-smoking-a-disease-or-a-habit/
I wish I had never started smoking. I wish I had never started drinking alcohol. I wish I had never started putting salt on my chips. I wish I had never started eating the chips in the first place. I wish I had never started............no, I think I will stop there, but I enjoy that as well!
P.S. Does this mean I wish I had never started living?
"And a third chose to smoke the same brand of cigarettes as their family and friends when they first started buying a specific brand regularly."
"The Answer is Plain, to remove all glitzy, glamorous branding from cigarette packets ..."
Those two statements confuse me. They contradict each other.
When are CRUK actually going to make any progress with all this “research” they’ve been doing over the years? A quick glance at their website indicates that despite the millions ploughed into their organisation by interested-party politicians and pharmaceutical companies and well-meaning members of the public over the years they don't seem to have discovered a single, solitary cure for any one of the multitude of types of cancer out there. Not one. There's lots of waffle about "success rates" and "progress" and "increased life expectation" and "exciting research," but there's not a single article, anywhere, which categorically says: "If you get ‘x’ type of cancer, or cancer of the ‘x’, then you'll be pleased to know that thanks to CRUK you can get rid of it - once and for all." Which, to my mind, means that, ultimately, all that "research" hasn’t really discovered anything meaningful.
Their site is pretty clear – it pretty much only blames smoking, drinking, obesity, diet, a lack of exercise and sunbathing for causing cancer. Questions about all other suggested causes – pollution, dioxins, radon, artificial sweeteners, stress – are met with "there-there" type platitudes which insinuate that the risks from these things is very low or non-existent. So maybe, with such a one-eyed preoccupation and an inability to even countenance other causes than “bad lifestyles” as a cause of cancer, perhaps it isn’t surprising that not a single cure has been discovered by this, the largest organisation of its type in the UK.
They’d do better to re-brand themselves as CPUK – Cancer Prevention UK – it might not attract as much in public donations (because, let’s be honest, what all those people digging into their pockets for loose change – even the non-smoking, non-drinking, morning-jogging ones - really want is a cure, not prevention), but it would at least be more honest!
Through FOI requests of the DOH, asking CRUK and the ACS (American Cancer Society), I have never had an answer worthy of note to this simple question.
What is the biological sequence of events, whereby the inhalation of smoke from a cigarette, cigar or pipe, mutates healthy lung tissue into cancerous lung tissue. Also to what extent is genetics involved 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% or not at all? Can we rule genetics in or out?
I have never had a definitive answer from any person or organisation, and why – because quite simply no one knows.
Of course if the question had been asked, "if the over 400% tax on tobacco products was removed would you still smoke" I think that a vast majority would answer yes.
I would imagine that if I still lived in the UK I might well feel a little ambivalent about having started smoking, given that it would now make me the legitimate target of every fanatical do-gooder and propagandised anti-smoker; plus being cast out from society at the behest of aforesaid zealots. The bottom line, though, is that as smoking is a habit, not an addiction, if people really want to stop, they can. As countless millions have. The fact that they continue to smoke is simply because they enjoy it, despite the efforts of the self-righteous to convince them otherwise.
Personally, I have no regrets at all. I enjoy a smoke, and I am fortunate enough to live in a country where it is still seen as a very normal thing to do. I was recently at a large gathering (100+) for a seated meal. There was no thought of having "smoking tables" and "non-smoking tables". The ashtrays were on all the tables, and people just sat where they wanted. And every table was a mix of smokers and non-smokers. No hand waving, no frowns, no disapproving glances, no problem. Just like it used to be in the UK before the sociopaths got shedloads of money for their propaganda drive.
Come the revolution, they will be the first up against the wall for their crimes against humanity. They may claim to be saving lives, but the damage they have done to society, and the lives and businesses they have destroyed far, far outweighs their spurious claims.
As a smoker, I used to always sub CRUK when a charity raffle came along.
I've not put a finger in my purse since I realised what they actually stood for.
Misty - you're spot on.
No regrets here either. When will the Govt and media learn that orgs like CRUK, BHF and ASH do not speak in our name but in the name of the smokerphobics, hypchondriacs, loonies and raging anti-smoker nutters.
The clue is in the name and description of Forest -the smoker's voice and friend - the Right To Enjoy Smoking Tobacco.