Thursday 24 September 2009

Smoking related deaths in Scotland

I had to take a day off today to look after The Lass (who is a poorly) and ended up watching BBC Parliament, which was broadcasting a debate in the Scottish parliament (or is it called 'assembly'? Does anybody know? Or care?) on a new law to make life even more difficult for smokers.

Several people parroted a statistic saying that there were slightly over 13,000 'smoking related deaths' every year in Scotland, which struck me as rather high, bearing in mind there were only 55,699 deaths in Scotland in 2008 (pdf)*. But it is true that those pathological liars ASH claim that "in 2004 an estimated 13,473 deaths in Scotland were attributed to smoking, which equated to 24% of all deaths."

Now, we also know that about a quarter of adults in Scotland smoke (slightly more than UK average, as confirmed here) and that 'passive smoking' is almost certainly a complete myth, so in other words, what they are saying is that absolutely every smoker dies of smoking related illness. Or when they are doing death certificates, they put a tick in the box for "Smoking related illness" if the deceased ever smoked.

Simples!

* Obviously, I didn't know the total number of deaths off by heart, but I know the population of Scotland is about 5 million so I multiplied that by one per cent to give me an approx. number of deaths.

8 comments:

Dick Puddlecote said...

In a nutshell.

Of course, other studies have mentioned that 1 in 10 smokers die because of the habit, but 1,300 isn't quite as scary when you're trying to piss off the entire convenience store community because just don't like the smell of smoke ... err ... sorry, when you're a public health saviour, that should have read - natch.

James Higham said...

Is it more dangerous to smoke up there as well?

Captain Ranty said...

Apparently it is James.

ASH Scotland, or some other gibbon suggested that Scots "breathe more deeply" and are therefore more susceptible.

In fact, all smokers breathe more deeply. It is one of the reasons so few of us have asthma.

That, and the fact that it is cool to smoke, and very uncool to be ill. In the real world, remarkably few smokers get ill.

They make this shit up as they go along.

Nice post Mark! Oozing common sense again.

CR.

Leg-iron said...

If a fat bloke gets run over while staggering pissed across the street with a fag in his hand, he's on the 'obesity', 'traffic', 'drink' and 'smoking' - related death lists.

Nobody dies just the once any more.

Incidentally, you'll notice that smoker's houses are all at lower heat settings than non-smoker's houses. We're used to spending a lot of time outside so we don't need to crank the heat up to 'tropical' like the permanently-indoor weaklings. When visiting non-smokers, I've sometimes gone outside for a smoke I didn't really want just to cool off.

So smokers are far more 'green' than non-smokers too.

Lester Taylor said...

Wadsworth isn't Ash a fake charity?

silicone breast implants said...

I am trying to give up this bad habit since last 8 month but its very hard for me. Do you have any idea or medicine for this. If anyone have pls tell me.

dearieme said...

I suppose that Foxe's martyrs all died of smoking.

RantinRab said...

Everyone who breathes dies.

Fact!