MP concerned about local smoking deaths

MP for Westbury, Dr Andrew Murrison, a former consultant, has met with the pressure group Action on Smoking and Health at Westminster to discuss how to cut smoking rates.

Andrew Murrison MP said, “The government’s comprehensive smoking strategy is definitely working although Wiltshire’s smoking rate exceeds England’s and over 600 people in the county die each year from smoking related illness.”

The MP is looking at how smoking, which is the cause of half the health inequalities that currently exist between the poor and well off, can be driven down further.

“There is no safe limit for tobacco consumption,” he said. “There should be even tighter controls on the sale of such an extraordinarily noxious substance in my view.

“For example, I wonder why supermarkets are still selling tobacco alongside food and pharmaceuticals. The optics of that really aren’t good at all.”