IT IS, of course, part of the increasingly-strident anti-tobacco propaganda that accompanies national No Smoking Day, but the survey finding linked with Wednesday's event which suggests that cigarette manufacturers should cough up the cost of nicotine patches and clinic to help smokers stop is, surely, an impudent one.

For it assumes that the blame for being a smoker lies with the tobacco industry, not with smokers themselves.

Surely, no-one of the present generation can claim to be unaware of the risks of starting the habit.

And does not this same survey admit that 97 per cent of smokers know it is addictive?

In which case, do not smokers have some responsibility for bearing the effort and cost of stopping smoking.

It may be that, in selling - albeit lawfully - a product that is hazard to health, manufacturers ought to have a windfall tax imposed on them to help fund an ever-desperate NHS and to help treat those suffering from smoking-related illnesses.

But those who have become voluntarily addicted ought also to accept the blame.

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