A new survey has revealed that nearly a third of smokers believe the health effects of smoking are exaggerated. Also less than four in 10 smokers are able to identify emphysema as a health effect of smoking. The survey was conducted over phone by the Cancer Council and included 861 smokers in 2009. The results were collated this year.
According the executive director Fiona Sharkie of the organization Quit, smokers were kidding themselves if they believed they could get away with smoking because the health effects had been exaggerated. She said, “Almost all smokers will get emphysema, while a quarter of all deaths from smoking are from emphysema… If smoking doesn't kill you, it will likely affect you in some other way, often in ways that can change you and your family's lives forever.”
Results of the survey showed that 32 per cent of smokers believe the health effects of smoking have been exaggerated and only 37.5 percent of smokers name emphysema or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) as being a health effect of smoking.
Quit on Sunday unveiled a new ad campaign featuring former smoker Mick Roberts, who has suffered emphysema for four years. In a series of ads, 49-year-old Roberts speaks about himself and his illness, the effects emphysema has had on him and the effects it's had on his family.
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