Madam, - The impending legislation to ban smoking in pubs and restaurants is welcome. The negative effects of smoking on the health of our nation cannot be overstated. What makes lung cancer, head and neck cancer, and other smoking-related cancers different from many other cancers is the fact that they can be prevented. With many other common cancers we are not aware of the causes and consequently cannot prevent them.
With lung cancer which is the single most common cancer causing death in Ireland, we are fully aware of its cause - smoking. Lung cancer without exposure to smoke is unusual. As cancer physicians and researchers, we are committed to fighting cancer through laboratory and clinical research and the application of best available practice. However, despite ongoing progress in these areas it is likely that lung cancer will continue to have a very grim prognosis for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, despite widespread knowledge linking smoking to lung cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, our young population continues to smoke at a depressingly high level.
Why is this so? There are many factors including peer pressure, an unacceptably high prevalence of smoking in films and television shows, and a perceived association between smoking and being cool and having a happy social life.
The latter point is probably particularly important in this country. For right or for wrong, pub culture has been a traditional part of our way of life. Consequently our young people link the most prevalent social activity with smoking. Perhaps it would be very different if people attending a pub were exposed solely to alcohol, rather than to the unholy alliance of smoking and drinking. When people take alcohol, their inhibitions are reduced and this may contribute to smoking.
This legislation would create a different social environment in which smoking and having a good time were not inexorably linked. For this reason it is a vital next step in our efforts to eliminate this scourge from our society. - Yours, etc.,
Dr JOHN ARMSTRONG,
Research Director,
St Luke's Hospital & Institute
of Cancer Research,
Highfield Road,
Rathgar,
Dublin 6.