ALMOST a quarter of smokers say they have a social habit despite the fact that many smoke six to 20 cigarettes a day, a poll suggests.
A survey of smokers found 24% class themselves as social smokers but more than one in three of these buy up to a packet a day.
Around 60% had tried giving up, with one in six of those who had tried to stop succeeding for more than a year before going back to their old habits.
Some 13% took up smoking again because friends smoked and they did not like being left alone on nights out. Other reasons included the effects of alcohol and a football team losing.
Of those who did go back to smoking, 47% had initially cut down.
The poll also found that 54% admitted to smoking in banned areas. One in six said this was because it was too wet and cold to smoke outside, while 14% said the area was not policed well.
Catherine Cox, primary care manager at The Co-operative Pharmacy, which conducted the poll, said: "Just smoking a few cigarettes a day has an impact on your health."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article