Smoking ban has failed

17th December 2008, 9:46am

New figures from the NHS Health Survey for England has shown that the smoking ban is not working.

When the ban was introduced back in 2007, the government insisted that the number of people smoking would drop and that pubs and restaurants would see increased business from non-smokers.

This has failed to happen and the NHS survey of 7,000 people highlighted how there was no change in the number of female smokers and men are actually smoking more.

Liberal Democrat's health spokesman, Norman Lamb described the blanket ban as "…yet another case of the government pursuing tough eye-catching initiatives which in the end don't succeed in tackling the real problem."

Previous polls have shown that the ban has had little effect with one survey suggesting that one in three people now stay home where they can smoke freely rather than visiting a pub or restaurant.

Pro-smoking group Forest called the ban "…an unmitigated failure."

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