CIGARETTES 'ARE AS ADDICTIVE AS HARD DRUGS'

CIGARETTES are as addictive as hard drugs and smokers should be
offered treatment on the National Health Service, leading medical
experts said yesterday.

A report from the Royal College of Physicians described nicotine as a
"powerfully addicting drug on a par with heroin and cocaine" and
called for cigarettes to be regulated by the Medicines Control Agency
or a new nicotine regulatory authority.

Prof Martin Jarvis, of the college's tobacco advisory group, which
prepared the report, said: "Studies show that if you ask smokers who
also use hard drugs which would be harder to quit, they will usually
say nicotine. What may make nicotine so addictive is the very free and
easy access to it, because society's rules mean that you can use it
whenever you like."

All doctors needed to recognise nicotine as a major medical priority,
said the report. It recommended that replacement therapies, such as
nicotine patches or gum, should be available through general sale and
"reimbursable NHS prescriptions". Hospitals and all other health
service providers should be required to provide support to smokers who
wanted to quit.

The branding of low tar as "light" or "mild" should also be banned
unless a reduced health risk was proved, according to the report.
Research indicated that smokers inhaled more deeply to compensate for
the lower nicotine levels in low tar cigarettes.

Mr Clive Bates, director of Ash and a member of the RCP group, said:
"The Royal College has sounded the death-knell for low tar cigarettes
and the comforting but wrong idea that these are somehow less
dangerous." But Martin Ball, of the smokers' pressure group Forest,
said: "A great many smokers actually enjoy smoking. It has nothing to
do with addiction."

Smoking causes one in every five deaths in Britain and costs the NHS
pounds 1.5 billion each year. Smoking has declined during the past 50
years, but the rate of people quitting was slowing. The Government is
supporting draft European legislation to ban 'light' and 'mild' brands.