Doctors urge smoking ban

Leading doctors today launched an unprecedented attack on the Government's "useless" anti-smoking policy by calling for a total ban in public places.

The heads of all 13 Royal Colleges of Medicine demanded that offices and restaurants be smoke-free because the five-year-old system of self-regulation "failed to protect the majority of staff or customers" and resulted in only a handful of smoke-free pubs.

In a letter to The Times, signed by the presidents of the Royal Colleges of Physicians (RCP), Radiologists, and Opthalmologists, the medical chiefs concur with Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, who has suggested a smoking ban in public places.

The letter says: "As doctors seeing the daily consequences of smoking and passive smoking, we agree and call on the Government to introduce legislation at the earliest possible opportunity."

It says 80 per cent of Britons are nonsmokers, most find cigarette smoke "unpleasant and irritating" and "all have a right to freedom from tobaccosmoke pollution".

The royal colleges say that most public places are somebody's workplace and employers must protect employees from harm, adding: "If all workplaces that currently permit smoking in Britain became smoke-free, it is estimated that more than 300,000 people would quit smoking and in the longer term more than 150,000 lives would be saved."

The letter also blames passive smoking for an estimated 1,000 adult deaths a year and for causing asthma, lung infections and middle-ear disease in children.

Despite the expected public support for such a ban, large parts of the hospitality industry could stand against a move to make them smoke-free, fearing loss of business. Many heads of the industry believe that by creating smoke-free zones they are doing enough to satisfy customers.

Self-regulation has the backing of Health Secretary Dr John Reid and the Prime Minister.

But John Britton, chairman of the RCP's Tobacco Advisory Group, said: "It's useless so far and I can't see why it should get any better. We have had it for five years now and there are still only a handful of smokefree pubs in the country."

Public smoking bans already exist in California, South Australia, parts of Japan and Canada.