Ten years ago, I decided that I should stop smoking. Before this decision, I had never given it a second thought. ‘Want to step outside for another? Yes please.’ Who cared about the wind blowing in from the Urals as we huddled around a lighter? Not I. Had I been ready to quit now, a new directive from the NHS, announced by Health Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday, offers smokers a free pill, varenicline, which notionally works by ‘binding to receptors in the brain to stop people craving or enjoying nicotine’. The decision to offer pills is part of the ‘prevention is better than cure’ narrative also being rolled out to tackle the NHS’s other great funds drain, obesity.
You can still smoke outside pubs, Starmer says, but not outside schools or hospitals. As if I would have lit up there anyway
Well, I’ve tried the anti-smoking pills, and I’m not impressed. The doctor I saw ten years ago gaily applauded my decision and, after unsuccessfully trying to fob me off with meditation techniques and the NHS Stop Smoking app, prescribed me Champix, a branded version of varenicline.
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