A prescription only pill to help smokers give up is to be made available on the National Health Service. Is this a good use of NHS resources?
Yesterday the National Institute for Clinical Excellence gave draft approval for the health service to provide varenicline, which is manufactured by Pfizer under the brand name Champix. Trials showed the twice-daily pill provided relief from cravings and withdrawal symptoms experienced by smokers.
The manufacturers said it also reduced the satisfaction smokers would get from cigarettes in the event of a relapse. During the trials, 44% of smokers had quit by the end of a 12-week course. This compared with a 30% success rate for the anti-smoking drug Zyban and 18% for smokers who were given a placebo.
The recommended 12-week course of treatment costs about £163.80.
There is an age old debate about the costs and revenues of smoking. Cancer sufferering former smokers require NHS treatment. On the flip side, the tax revenue from smoking is enormous.
The Government is making it much more difficult for smokers to smoke with the ban on smoking in public buildings coming into force very soon. But the Government would be loath to lose that tax income from the billions of fags sold every year.
Have smokers paid for their treatment many times over already? Or should those who are daft enough to smoke, have to pay for their treatment?
(Full disclosure: I have been a smoker off and on for more than a decade. But even when I am not smoking, I still think of myself as a smoker. Once a smoker, always a smoker)
