Briefings - tobacco control

Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of cancer worldwide. One in two long-term smokers will die from smoking - half of them in middle age.

Cancer Research UK wants to prevent more people developing and dying from cancer. Tobacco use causes over a quarter of all cancer deaths in the UK and nine in ten cases of lung cancer, the most common cause of cancer death. It also increases the risk of developing over a dozen other cancers.

Achieving a tobacco-free society would reap vast health benefits. We are proud to have played a major role alongside partner organisations in 2006/2007 in securing the successful introduction of smokefree legislation in almost all enclosed workplaces and public places across the UK. Early studies show that this has dramatically reduced workers’ exposure to the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. Some health gains are already being recorded, though it will take some years before the full health benefits of smokefree laws are realised.

In order to build on this success, Cancer Research UK is now calling upon the UK government to implement and fund a comprehensive tobacco control plan.

The specific measures of this plan will vary across the UK, but the plan needs to contain a broad range of measures, including, but by no means limited to:

  • Ensuring the real price of tobacco remains high by increasing taxation and tackling smuggling.
  • Making further efforts to reduce secondhand smoke exposure, particularly to young people.
  • Taking immediate action to protect children from tobacco marketing, including removing tobacco products and marketing from sight at the point of sale, removing vending machines, reducing the visibility of smoking in the media, and considering the evidence for the prohibition of sales of cigarettes in packs of less than 20.
  • Maximising the use and uptake of the most effective smoking cessation methods, and funding research into new products, methods and services for key groups, particularly routine and manual workers, pregnant women and young people.
  • Committing to the development of a strategy to help smokers who cannot yet quit to switch to much less harmful pure nicotine products.
  • Providing leadership in international and EU matters that affect tobacco supply and demand in the UK.

Briefings

To find out more about Cancer Research UK’s policies on tobacco control, please click on the links below:

For further information on broader topics, please see the links on the right under UK Partnerships and International Partnerships.

 

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