Smokers in Dundee are being offered £12.50 per week on a new scheme designed by NHS Tayside to help them stop smoking. The money is awarded to each smoker as they attend a smoking cessation session and successfully pass a test to confirm they havent smoked that week. The money is put onto a smart card that they can then exchange for food at a supermarket.
Good value for money? So far the scheme is claiming a 35% success rate with up to 20 smokers joining the scheme each week. The money can only be used to buy food and not cigarettes or alcohol which will go some way to appeasing the doubters but do we really need to resort to `bribery` to get results?
It certainly seems to be the way things are going at the moment and time will tell if it proves a success. With campaigns to help people stay away from smoking in the first place possibly stagnating this may be the way ahead. Combining this with the smoking age being raised and cigarettes and tobacco being possibly banned from display in future this may be a helping hand. But considering a good percentage of smokers are from deprived backgrounds more clearly needs to be done to help combat this issue!
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