Wednesday 13 March is ‘No Smoking Day’ across the UK, and Hackney Council’s free stop smoking service, Smoke Free, was keen to spread the message.
No Smoking Day is an annual awareness day intended to help smokers who want to quit. It was first launched – somewhat ironically – on Ash Wednesday, in 1984.
Smoke Free, which provides free drop-in clinics at twenty-four local pharmacies across the borough, described No Smoking Day as “the perfect time to quit” in a post on its website.
Speaking to the Hackney Post, a spokeswoman from the London branch of Public Health England offered a range of tips for would-be quitters.
“Lots of people try and go completely ‘cold turkey’.
But it’s far better, in practice, to go to your GP, or at the very least use some sort of aid such as a nicotine patch.
“More broadly, [I’d advise people to] go online. There’s so much out there – personalised plans, quizzes, apps… the list goes on.
“If people know other people in the same situation, they are much more likely to be successful. People who get help are helped.”
In addition to its services helping quitters, Smoke Free offers training for healthcare professionals who want to help others quit. Trainees can ultimately become fully-fledged advisors who offer intensive, one-on-one sessions with would-be quitters over six to twelve weeks.
According to Hackney Council, over one-in-five Hackney residents aged 16 or older – over 47,000 people – were smokers as of 2016.
