The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7368 p362
24 September 2005

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Society calls for smoking ban to be complete

Only a complete ban on smoking in all enclosed public places will protect people from second hand smoke, encourage them to give up and ultimately act as a deterrent to smoking, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society says.

Responding to the parliamentary Health Committee’s inquiry into the Government’s proposals to restrict smoking in public places, Hemant Patel, President of the Society said: “The Royal Pharmaceutical Society believes that there should be nothing less than a full ban on smoking in all enclosed public places. As a profession, community pharmacists are ideally placed to provide counselling on how to stop smoking. Our response highlights all the different skills that our profession has to help the Government deliver the smoking cessation agenda.”

The Society says that it urges the Government to put forward comprehensive smoke-free legislation to protect workers in all places of work and to bring this into effect across Great Britain “as soon as possible and certainly by the end of 2007.”