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Paying smokers to quit
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Comments
I doubt very much they've read the article Aitch.
Smokers in these parts can't read.
At least the f*cking enormous "NO SMOKING ANYWHERE IN THE HOSPITAL GROUNDS" signs anyway.
I prefer a more draconian approach. My grandmother favoured the "if you smoke I'll wet the whole pack and forcefeed them to you one by one".......
I'm thinking I should take up smoking so I get £12.50 a week to quit!
I know somebody whose asthma is so debilitating she has a blue badge at 27 and spends weeks at a time on a resps ward because it is generally poorly controlled.
She took up smoking to "lose weight"
I'm asthmatic (or used to be when I smoked) but gave up in 1984. Do I get back pay?
Also I'd love Blue Peter badge
By Hash aged 46 and a quarter x
I just thing it's blinkin' stupid!
ZZ - LOL!
Sadly she did not lose weight and is bigger than ever but has an almost permanent hospital bed.....
Just for you ZZ - I know you want one really!
LB - Thas so upsetting. My health is very important to me and I'm 27.
If you can't give up smoking for your health will £12 a week really help?
LIVERBIRD- I think your granny had the best idea. I watched a follow up programme this week about the 2 groups of overweight bingo hall staff who lost weight last year. The group which were paid lost the most but had put it all back on, the unpaid group lost less but continue to lose or keep it off. Guessing it would be the same- take the cash & restart (or never stop).
Barmy -why don't they give us the cash to keep fit.
i agree this is utterly barmy (must also declare myself a Fifer/Dundonian.
however, have also heard from dundee health professionals that it is apparently having a noticeable effect....just saying,
LOL Oxy, you joke but it's true, won't be long before druggies get paid to come off the stuff! I am not a fan of drug abusers either! They get no sympathy from me!
I take Dude's point that it's having an effect and you could argue that anything that encourages people to give up would have to be a good thing. I have two points though to raise.
What if these smokers are spending their £12.50 on cream cakes / lard / anything in Farmfoods and are storing up an obesity problem instead, which will also have an affect on the NHS resources? (and let's face it, it IS a money saving exercise for the government) Quitting smokers often report overeating when they give up, when in reality they've had their appetites suppressed by nicotine for years....
And who are the government to hand out OUR taxes to people and then dictate what they should spend their money on? I can, of course see why they wouldn't want them to blow it on a bottle of Scotch, but who REALLY wants to live in a country where what you buy is down to men in suits in Whitehall?
Thin end of the wedge.....
No no, let's get this right. They get about £25 extra shopping once you include the money they haven't spend on cigarettes.
Heck, that's a week's worth of decent meals for me!
From what they were saying on the radio last night, they get what sounded like a gift card for ASDA that gets topped up with the money each week once they've been to the clinic running the scheme and had a carbon monoxide test. If they pass the CO testing, they get the top ups. It's for 12 weeks and is being run following a similar scheme introduced for pregnant women called Give it up for Baby.
Surely anything which encourages people to stop smoking is good though?
but they would be saving more than that a week just from giving up............if that doesn't provide an incentive and then if they buy loads of crap they will start again because they will blame the weight gain on giving up the cigarettes and then it will be in their heads that they can't give up next time or they will gain weight.........
surely a plan that encourages exercise which will make them feel better will have a longer lasting chance of working..............
It's not a lot of money. It's just something to make people stop and think about it for more than a second.
I think it's a good idea.
How about pay me for NOT ruining my health and smoking!
Moose, I know it's not a great deal, but well over 200 quid per person and think about how many people there are on the scheme (I know there are a lot). It IS a lot of money! What happens when they stop getting the money?? That's their long term incentive? People wills tart to rely on that extra money then get depressed blah blah blah when they don't have as much.... I don't think it will work in the long term.
Why not cream cakes & biscuits? Whatever helps to get off the fags (provided it's not smack or something) is ok by me.
When I gave up smoking I found that drinking whiskey really helped, but I didn't become alcoholic. I did put on weight, but then I dealt with that when I was free of the weed. One thing at a time.
If people are smoking 2 or three a day and they're still getting a negative on the CO test then the test needs tightening up. I absolutely agree that you can't give up by cutting down.
But I still maintain that it's not a lot of money - not in the wider scheme of things. Especially if you factor in the healthcare savings. By the time the scheme ends, hopefully folks will have realised how much better they feel and that's their incentive to stay off. I don't think people should be allowed to join & re-join the scheme - it should be a once only deal.
*I know, not realistic, but it would make people see how much it costs to put right the damage they've caused to their bodies by being stupid!
Following on from my earlier comment, that the incentive plus the saving comes to about £25.
Presumably the savings a smoker makes on not buying cigarettes over the course of a week is insufficient incentive for them to actually stop, and the incentive needs a boost in cash.
Ok, it wouldn't be allowed, but the government could simply hike the tax up to the point where a cigarettes cost £12.50 more per week to the average smoker. Those who can still afford to buy them will simply pay way over the cost and it can go to the NHS.
(I actually wrote that about 2 hours ago and forgot to press Submit, so there will be about 20 x-posts now.)