It’s national No Smoking Day again *sigh*.
Let’s remind ourselves again of the outfit that has received money to organise this for us in the UK for the last 28 years: No Smoking Day, registered company number 2660741.
Last year, they announced that because of the loss of their £250,000 government funding at the end of March 2012, they were forced to merge with the British Heart Foundation.
Does the National Smoking Day work? Well, no. They claim they managed to frighten and denormalise a quarter of a million smokers, many of whom may have been light or occasional smokers, into saying they will quit as a result of No Smoking Day. They claim: “Some 250,000 try to quit each year as a result of the NSD campaign…”
But how many of those then stop smoking permanently?: “… with about 6,000 giving up for good.” That is 2.4% of those who attempt to quit as a result of No Smoking Day.
Is it cost-effective? The authors of this commissioned report seem to hedge their bets because of lack of information.
http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/CRDWeb/ShowRecord.asp?ID=22011001892
There is a telling comment on the No Smoking Day company on Wikipedia: ‘This article may rely too heavily on sources with too close a tie to the subject to be verifiable and neutral. Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Smoking_Day
Freedom to Choose does not promote smoking and includes non-smoking members, but it does promote the freedom to choose to smoke.
We think that the UK National No Smoking Day is a waste of our money. We would like to call for a National Smoking Day in England on 1st July every year.