DOCTORS are urging the Scottish Government to extend the smoking ban to include private vehicles after research revealed drivers and passengers are exposed to 23 times more toxins from passive smoking in a car compared to a pub.

Research by the British Medical Association (BMA) claims vulnerable people, particularly children and the elderly, are being put at risk through exposure to highly concentrated levels of second-hand smoke in cars.

The restricted environment of a motor vehicle compared to pubs and bars, where smoking has already been outlawed, exacerbates the dangers from passive smoking, according to the research.

Non-smoking drivers and passengers are exposed to 23 times more toxins in a car compared to drinkers and employees in pubs before the ban was introduced in 2006, it found.

Studies have also shown that even opening a window when smoking fails to reduce toxins within the car to a safe level. Other research indicates residual toxins from tobacco smoke remain in the interior materials of the vehicle long after the cigarette has burnt out -- potentially exposing passengers to toxins hours after anyone has smoked in the vehicle.

The BMA warned children are more prone to absorbing harmful pollutants because of their size and less developed immune systems, while elderly people with mobility problems may rely on being transported by others in cars.

Dr Dean Marshall, chairman of the BMA’s Scottish GP Committee, and a GP in Dalkeith, said: “Scotland made a huge step forward in the fight against tobacco by banning smoking in all enclosed public places but more can still be done.

“We are calling on the Scottish Government to take the bold and courageous step of banning smoking in private vehicles. The evidence for extending the smoke-free legislation is compelling. This should form part of a new tobacco control strategy that will take us further towards our goal of achieving a smoke-free society by 2035.”

It comes after Northern Ireland Health Minister Edwin Poots announced on Monday he will consider banning smoking in all cars -- not just those with children as passengers.

The Welsh Assembly confirmed in July it would consider a ban on smoking in vehicles with children if its current campaign to highlight the dangers failed to tackle the problem.

However, a spokesman for the Scottish Government said that while they had no plans to extend the smoking ban to private vehicles he acknowledged they were “one of the main places for exposure of children to second-hand smoke”.

He added: “In developing our refreshed national tobacco control strategy for publication next year we will consider with our health improvement partners what further steps might be taken to protect children from the risks posed by second-hand smoke.”

The smokers’ rights lobby group Forest said calls to extend legislation to private vehicles were a “gross over-reaction”. Its director Simon Clark said that while they did not condone smoking in cars with children present, the evidence “doesn’t support the argument smoking in cars is a serious health risk to children”.

The calls coincided with a report by the The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, which urged the Scottish Government to address discrepancies in survival rates from the disease across the country.

The report, which pulled together a variety existing data to compile a comprehensive picture of lung cancer in Scotland, found that someone living in the Glasgow region was almost twice as likely to develop lung cancer as someone from Grampian. Once they have developed the illness, the patient in Glasgow will be nearly twice as likely to die from it as a lung cancer patient from the Borders.

Professor Ray Donnelly, the charity’s president, said he hoped the report would “act as a catalyst” to encourage those involved in managing and providing lung cancer services to look at data from their own area and examine variation.