Figures quoted by Sky News show that while the UK has made cigarettes more expensive and removed them from show, it has had no impact on the amount of smokers in the UK.

Let us begin from here… smoking is a terrible, dangerous and unhealthy habit – all steps should be taken to try and minimise the number of people who take it up. But the findings in the UK are worrying. Rather than reducing the number of smokers, or in turn increasing the number of people who successfully give up, putting cigarette prices up has done nothing except make people switch to cheaper brands.

While no cigarette is good for you, or healthy in any way, form or manner, the cheaper brands have been scientifically proven to be worse for people’s health and this is due to inferior filter materials and rougher tobacco being used.

The author must confess to being a smoker, and a smoker that has tried to give up a fair amount of times. Deep down, almost every person who does have the habit, wants to give up. It makes one smell, causes shortness of breath, ages skin and causes myriad health problems. Only a person who has smoked as an everyday habit knows just how hard it is to kick the habit. And it seems that the same problem as experienced by the UK is starting to surface in Malta – people simply switching to cheaper brands.

There have been a fair few amount of initiatives to encourage people to stop, the major help being the decision to change the law to make it illegal to smoke in public places. Perhaps this law ought to be extended also to public spaces which are outdoors.

Other measures have included the quit and win campaigns, support lines, support kits and medical advice. Smoking kills, there is no two ways about it. But just like the heroin addict, the nicotine addict finds it very hard to get rid of the crutch that is smoking. Another very important aspect is education. Not for the smoker, they know full well the harm they are causing to themselves. But when children are educated as to the harm of cigarettes and smoking, they are often the ones that pressure parents, uncles and siblings into giving up the habit.

This has worked in other areas such as water conservation, safeguarding animal rights and recycling, and it also works on smokers. Many people give up, or at least will not smoke in the presence of children, because they have been (rightly) ‘guilt-tripped’ into it.

Smoking is one of the leading causes of illnesses and bed occupancy in hospital, though it is set to be overtaken by obesity-related illness. Many smokers do want to stop. Some will manage first time, others another time. Others might never manage to kick the habit for good. But while making cigarettes more expensive might help with the Mater Dei bill in terms of taxes claimed by the government, it is not going to stop people from buying a packet of smokes. Nicotine is a drug, just like cocaine, heroin and any other drug that causes major dependency. Perhaps it is time for a nationwide survey and conference to tackle this issue in the hope of making progress.

The best way to kick smoking is simple, don’t ever even try it, it’s absolutely not worth it.