UK Criticized for Not Doing
Enough to End Smoking

Britain, where tobacco kills someone every five minutes, was criticized for not doing enough to convince people to stop smoking.

Public health experts compared visiting Britain to entering a "tobacco-control time warp" because so many people in the country still smoke and so little has been done to stamp out smoking in public places.

"Most Australian states now have legislation making all restaurants smoke-free, leading to an unpleasant surprise for non-smoking Australian visitors to Britain," Professor Konrad Jamrozik, an Australian who works at Imperial College London, said in a statement.

"The UK is paying the price for its delay in adopting the full range of effective strategies to help smokers give up and dissuade young people from taking up the habit. That price is the death of one Briton from smoking every five minutes."

In a report in the Medical Journal of Australia, the researchers said nearly a third of Britons smoke, compared to about 20 percent of Australians.

Although British scientists were the first to document the health risks of smoking, the country is lagging behind other nations in adopting a comprehensive program of tobacco control, according to the Jamrozik and his colleagues.

"International experience shows that adoption of smoke-free policies in public places and workplaces stimulates many smokers to give up the habit," Jamrozik said.

"When introduced with adequate explanation and advance notice, smoke-free policies are well respected, and several studies have now shown that they have no adverse economic impact on the hospitality industry."

Britain's most senior doctors have urged the government to follow the example of Ireland and some U.S. cities and impose a ban on smoking in public.

Ireland announced last month that it would introduce a tobacco ban at the end of March which would make it the first country in Europe to outlaw smoking in pubs, bars and restaurants.

Smoking bans have also been introduced in several American cities including New York.

The presidents of Britain's royal colleges of medicine and independent professional bodies said a workplace ban alone would cut many deaths from passive smoking and could lead an estimated 300,000 people to give up.