Smoking ban sees thousands quit across Portsmouth
Health leaders have hailed the smoking ban a success in the city as thousands of smokers have kicked the habit.
About 56,000 adults were smokers in Portsmouth before the ban on smoking in offices and enclosed public places was introduced in July 2007.
And now on national No Smoking Day, health officials have announced that since the ban that number has dropped to 45,000.
It means instead of 33 out of every 100 adults being a smoker, the number is now about 27 in every 100.
Katie Hovenden, NHS Portsmouth's public health smoking lead, said: 'The smoking ban has had a positive impact on the number of smokers in the city.
'"Not smoking" is becoming the social norm, and you would now be regarded as very anti-social if you smoked in a restaurant, pub or office.'
Now NHS Portsmouth is using national No Smoking Day to try to get thousands more people to quit.
PompeyQuit teams will be out and about in the city today encouraging people to sign up to the stop smoking programme to get free advice and support.
Mrs Hovenden said: 'There's still plenty that we can do, but NHS Portsmouth is trying to make it as easy as possible, for as many people as possible, to quit smoking by offering a range of different options to support people to quit .
'National No Smoking Day provides the opportunity to promote this to people and to help them think about the different benefits for them and their family if they were to quit smoking.
'On National No Smoking Day, we hope as many people as possible will think about setting a date to quit.'
The PompeyQuit team will be based in Cascades Shopping Centre in Commercial Road Portsmouth from 9am to 5pm. People can also attend a No Smoking Day event at Fratton Community Centre, where they can meet with advisors, from 9am to 4pm. And Hampshire Quit4Life teams will also be offering advice and support at Asda stores in Havant, Gosport and Fareham.
If you want to stop smoking, contact PompeyQuit on (023) 9236 9234, or visit pompeyquit.com
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Weather for Portsmouth
Saturday 26 May 2012
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