More help for heavy smokers advocated

Press, 12 February 1982, Page 12

More help for heavy smokers advocated

PA Hamilton • More assistance should be given to heavy smokers to help them give up, says the National Heart Foundation medical director, Dr David Hay.

Although last year’s census showed that the percentage of smokers had dropped in all age groups since 1976, except among women under 24 years, the percentage of people smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day had risen in all age groups, except 15 to 19-year-old women — to a total of 35 per cent of women and 49 per cent of men, Dr Hay said. In the latest New Zealand medical journal, he expressed concern about the high proportion of heavy smokers among those who continue to smoke. He referred to the "hardcore hypothesis” — that those who still smoke, smoke

heavily because they are more addicted and therefore less able to cut back. Dr Hay said he would like to see more help given to these people. “Doctors can do much by their own example of nonsmoking. by a sympathetic non-judgmental approach, and by accepting that treatment of a heavy smoker is just as important as treating many of the various illnesses on which we spend so much time, drugs, and investigation,” he said. The Health Department should give a lead, he said, and more smoking-cessation programmes should be available. Dr Hay said that the next objective should be to reduce the level of smoking down to that Which had already been achieved in the professions — one person in four.