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Plenary, 10 Nov 2004

10 Nov 2004 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Smoking

Turner, Dr Jean Ind Strathkelvin and Bearsden Watch on SPTV

How can I follow that, Presiding Officer?

A ban on smoking in public places is a small start. If that is what it takes to reduce smoking, I am for it. The tragedy is that smoking is an addiction that so many people do not believe will kill them.

Nearly 40 years ago, I worked in a thoracic unit. As a young doctor, I was in do doubt about the tragic consequences of smoking. I once had to tell the wives of two 40-year-olds that their husbands had inoperable cancer of the lung, and both those ladies had children under 12. That was traumatic for me, but it was absolutely tragic for them. It is the tragedies in families on which we hope to begin to have some sort of effect.

I am a non-smoker, but I was a passive smoker for many years, because both my parents smoked. As a child, I always thought that my respiratory illnesses were due to the smog; I never thought for one minute that they were due to my parents smoking. If they had thought that they were doing anything to harm me, I am sure that they would have stopped. I do not know whether members know what it is like to cough all night, but many children do. The commonest cause of coughing is parental smoking. Despite the fact that people will open their windows and spray air freshener all over the place before the doctor comes, we can tell that cigarettes have been smoked in those houses. Margo MacDonald and other members made an important point about effects on children. In banning smoking in public places, we are not going to prevent the terrible ills that will still exist in the background. If we could stop people smoking, there would still be an epidemic incidence of lung cancer. People should also pay attention to the other things that I had to deal with as a general practitioner, such as all the respiratory and vascular illnesses.

On a lighter note, a gentleman who had lost his leg due to vascular disease and smoking chose not to wear his prosthesis and went around on his double crutches with a cigarette dangling from his lips; his wife died of lung cancer. We can see how difficult it is to get the message across to people; they do not believe that smoking kills.

My mother and many of my patients had emphysema, and members must believe me when I say, "You don't want it." Sufferers cannot walk on the slightest incline once it begins to affect them. There are lots of illnesses that pertain to smoking. It caused our health centre an awful lot of work, but the cost to the health service is certainly balanced out by any problems that may arise due to loss of earnings.

The proposal may be a price worth paying. I think that it is nice to be able to go out of an evening and not have one's eyes smart and one's throat burn. I do not go to places now because I cannot stand the smoke, even though many of my friends who smoke do their very best to ensure that their smoke does not go in my direction. Even in an open-air restaurant in Thailand, my friend's cigarette smoke went along to the next table; the people at that table could not stand it so much that eventually there was nearly a stand-up fight.

I was speaking to a chap who was smoking outside while I waited for a taxi. I jokingly said to him, "Well, what do you think about a ban?" He said, "I'm for it. I've been in Ireland with my family and we had a very pleasurable holiday, because all the children wanted to go out with Mum and Dad and enjoy a meal."

We need to spend a lot more money on research. It is dreadful that a leading cancer expert is quoted in The Herald today as saying that lung cancer is a Cinderella subject in research. Tariq Sethi, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, blamed the shortage of research into the illness on the public perception that victims brought it on themselves. I would think that there is more to it than that. I do not think that people should not be treated just because they smoke. Smoking is an addiction and they jolly well need help, and we need to put as many resources into helping them as possible.

I feel sorry for the people who are put into rooms to smoke. Ventilation does not work, and we could start with a little research into that matter to prove our point. If one goes to Singapore airport one can see how bad such rooms are. My cigarette-smoking friends could not bear it; they were in and out of the room in seconds. Such rooms do not stop the smell of smoke. In the MSP building, the smell of smoke permeates the lift shaft. I am for a ban if it helps anybody to stop, and there is evidence to prove that it does.

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Plenary, 10 Nov 2004

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