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These figures although slightly less than last year's are nevertheless
appalling, and no excuse is made for repeating the following extracts
from last year's annual report.
"The effect of recent propaganda against smoking appears to have
been negligible, or even negative. Thus, up to age 25, for males, 61%
were smokers in 1956 and 67% in 1961, and for females to the same age,
38% were smokers in 1956 while 49% were smokers in 1961. [This
is a truly appalling result for the efforts made to guide the younger adults
in the community]. Over the age of 25 the percentage of non-smokers
in males between 1951 and 1961 increased from 19 to 27.
"For many years medical officers of health have underlined the
association of cigarette smoking with lung cancer (in this borough advice
on this has been given over at least the last 10 years), but unfortunately
with no obvious effect on the amount of tobacco consumed, while at the
same time the lung cancer rate has steadily increased. Advice to stop
smoking, certainly of cigarettes, to lessen the risk from lung cancer,
chronic bronchitis, and certain heart diseases, has now been given by
such an influential body as the Royal College of Physicians, and so
the gist of their advice is modestly repeated here: SAVE YOUR
HEALTH, YOUR FAMILY, YOUR POCKET by giving up
smoking. That is what it really amounts to.
If you are wavering on the brink of giving it up, do now take the
plunge, but even if you have not the inclination or will-power for that,
please get out of the unhealthy social habit of offering cigarettes on so
many occasions to your friends. (Keep them, if you have to, for your
enemies!) Remember that: lung cancer may not show itself for 20 years
or more; it is almost invariably fatal; it attacks younger age-groups
than most other cancers; 20,000 men died of it last year in this country;
it appears to be one of the very few cancers which is mainly preventable;
evidence of its connection with cigarette smoking is overwhelming.
Also remember that cigarette smoking can cause, or make worse,
chronic bronchitis, certain types of heart disease, some stomach ulcers.