Smokers in Dorset urged to quit as a new year's resolution (From Dorset Echo)

Smokers in Dorset urged to quit as a new year's resolution

12:00pm Tuesday 1st January 2013 in News By James Tourgout

SMOKERS in Dorset are being urged to kick the habit as a new year’s resolution.

Smokefree South West is particularly targeting people who smoke roll-ups under its Wise-Up to Roll-Ups campaign.

Fiona Andrews, director of Smokefree South West, said: “This New Year acts as a fantastic opportunity for smokers to quit for good and start 2013 afresh.

“Despite the past successes of the Wise-Up to Roll-Ups campaign, smoking hand rolling tobacco remains a popular choice amongst many smokers in the region.

“Wise-Up to Roll-Ups remains the only campaign nationally to depose the myths and tell smokers the real risks of smoking hand rolling tobacco.”

She added: “Rolling your own cigarettes can often be seen as a skill, where smokers can also regulate the amount of tobacco they smoke.

“Many indeed believe smoking in this way is even less harmful for you.

“This is simply not true and smoking hand rolling tobacco carries the same kinds of health risks to smokers as manufactured cigarettes, such as cancer and lung disease.

“Hand rolling tobacco smokers are often ‘immune’ to most other anti-smoking campaigns as they don’t think of themselves as ‘normal’ smokers.

“We hope this new campaign will prove as successful as it has done in the past.

“We hope that continues to reduce the large numbers of people still smoking hand rolling tobacco in the South West.”

The South West remains the region with the highest proportion of hand rolled tobacco smokers in the country.

Hand rollers account for more than half of the region’s 810,000 smokers.

The Wise-Up to Roll-Ups was first launched in 2011.

The campaign aims to dispel the myths that smoking hand rolling tobacco is a less harmful.

The myth is that hand rolled tobacco is a more ‘natural’ alternative to smoking manufactured, packaged cigarettes.

Toxic Chemicals In Tobacco

SMOKEFREE South West says that smoking hand rolling tobacco contains as many harmful chemicals as manufactured cigarettes and causes the same health risks.

These include cancer, stroke, heart and lung disease, impotence, infertility, and even amputation. There are more than 4,000 toxic chemicals inhaled when smoking hand rolling tobacco, many of which are carcinogenic and poisonous.

Visit wiseupandquit.co.uk for more details.