I WAS saddened at the reports that Paul Gascoigne is a smoker and also that England coach Glenn Hoddle wrongly claims that encouraging him to stop ''could do more harm than good''. Giving up smoking would have immediate health benefits to Gazza himself. It would also be the best possible way of encouraging young people to stop or, best of all, not to start in the first place.
Out of 1000 20-year-old smokers, one will die from homicide, six from motor vehicle accidents, and 500 (50%) from smoking-related disease. It is estimated that 90% of lung cancer is due to smoking. The life expectancy of a man who smokes at 35 is reduced by approximately seven years, a woman by five years.
For the majority of lung cancer patients there have been no significant advances in treatment over the last 30 years, and unfortunately 80% of lung cancer patients die within a year of being diagnosed.
Therefore I urge all smokers to think about giving up.
Colin Graham,
Fundraising Manager,
West of Scotland Office,
Macmillan Cancer Relief,
Block 20, Western Court,
100 University Place, Glasgow.
May 18.
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