To hate the idea of the new smoking bribe?

[CharleyFarleyy]

What do people who dont smoke anyway get? seems like they are going to miss out un-fairly.

Also if quitting for your and your babys health isnt incentive enough will shopping vouchers help anyway?

We are human beings with the power of education, reasoning and morals. And we should be expected to use them

It would be lovely if humans behaved in a reasonable and rational way that would be best for their long term good, taking into account current knowledge of potential risks associated with their choices and so on.

But human nature's not like that. People tend to be driven by emotion and impulse and habit and find it difficult to focus on potential long term consequences of their current actions, whether you're talking about smoking or drinking or overeating or not saving a portion of disposable income for retirement. People often behave in ways that are bad for their current or future health / prospects with disregard to education or reason.

And it's worth noting that some people are much more educated than others. Some women may think that smoking risks are exaggerated because friend X smoked and her kids were fine (my aunt, for instance, smoked throughout her pregnancies and had 3 healthy babies. She got lucky)

A definite 100% chance of a voucher may be an immediate incentive that encourages women to try quitting, and if it works, I don't think it's a bad thing.

I understand you 100% and I don't disagree with what you're saying at all, but I just don't think we should begin the slippery slope of rewarding people from abstaining from behaviours that are immoral.

To me it does seem like nannying. It's patronising. It's akin to giving children gold stars for good behaviour. I appreciate it works, but I don't agree with it.

"The baby's health" is indeed the best reason to quit smoking while pregnant. But pregnancy is surreal. If you became a mother and felt a connection to the baby straight away then well done you. But many many women don't. They can't connect with the intangible inside, and you can give as much info as you want but its still hard to imagine the reality. Then the baby is born and reality kicks in.

Nicotine addiction is instant and tangible. So are these vouchers.

You're right Arabella- I know nothing about nicotine addiction.

I just used to smoke 20 Marlboro Red a day cos I liked the colour of the packet.

I find this system a bit patronising and it seems to downplay the power of addiction. I don't think that pregnant women are happily smoking away not giving a flying fox about their babies - they do it because it's hard to quit.

I'd far rather that they put effort into something longer term. I believe that the sale of cigarettes should be made illegal. Those people who are already smokers should have so many months to register with a GP as a smoker and get cigarettes on prescription, but charged at the price that cigarettes currently are. Hopefully that would stop new generations from smoking.

If you want women to have less bodily autonomy than a corpse then yes we should ban every bad thing and fine the feckless harridans.

In fact it's probably a UKIP policy right now so that's sorted.

Take away the rights of the woman and it's a slippery slope, what will be next? We are not walking incubators, there will always be people (male and female) who do not behave ideally but the alternative is a far scarier prospect.

Possibly a daft idea, but I wonder if the government reducing the amount of nicotine allowed in cigarettes would help make it easier to quit smoking?

shadow It's not daft at all, but I have to say I started using e-cigs to cut the cigs, that worked so I tried to decrease the nicotine so I could get of the e-cigs altogether. I now use 0% nicotine 'juice' and it hasn't made a bit of difference. I've swapped one addiction for another. I've constantly got it in my hand when I'm at home.

I think the addiction of nicotine is overrated and the addiction of the act itself not spoken about enough.

That's really interesting Grays. I wonder would it increase the rates of those who were able to give up smoking if they were given a nicotine-free e-cig?

I would be all for people being given nicotine free e-cigs if only we knew more about them. I wish there'd be an unbiased, peer reviewed study on them so we could see. All I've read is conflicting so far. I'll be terribly disappointed though if it turns out they're even worse than cigs

True Grays, it will probably be a while before we see those types of studies. Maybe they could be given something else. I'm purely basing this on the idea that still being able to perform the 'act' might help psychologically.

I think the addiction of nicotine is overrated and the addiction of the act itself not spoken about enough

I totally agree - but then, as another 0% ecig user I probably would

It's true that there's no reliable evidence so far showing eigs are harmful, but equally true that any long term effects can't be known until they've been used for many years ... in the meantime I'd suggest it's probably best for expectant mums to avoid them as they would most drugs

I think the most important thing here is the baby's health.

This scheme has made babies healthier. End of argument for me.

Just because you have an addiction does not mean you are aware of the way it works inside your brain.
I also don't get why I was called patronising. I gave a brief explanation of how the vouchers were meant to help, because I was pressed for time and it was yet to be mentioned in the thread.
If you do understand the process of addiction, then why wouldn't you support something that is going to benefit the health of vulnerable human beings AND reduce the financial burden on the NHS?

I don't like the way it makes addiction into something that you can be bribed out of. Would we give cash incentives to heroin addicts? Gambling addicts? Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances, and acting like all you need is some vouchers to quit takes the piss out of everyone who has ever struggled to stop.

Yes there's always very vocal women who managed to quit the second they pissed on the stick but it is a hell of a lot harder for some people. If it were that easy there wouldn't be such a huge NRT industry.

I also don't agree with piling more guilt onto new mothers. Early motherhood can be full of guilt as it is, we don't need more.

It's probably about time that something else came along so we can vilify smokers some more. People think worse of smokers than any other addicts, and this won't help.

I just got to the bottom of the first page and I honestly can't believe the attitude of some people. We are comparing smokers to rapists now are we?! Really?!

And to the OP... I no longer smoke thanks to ecigs, but 2 years ago I would have traded you £1000 worth of vouchers for you to take my addiction to nicotine. There really is 100 reasons to feel sorry for smokers, so if they want to quit and are finding it difficult then I pity them. Secondly, in 2012-2013 they raised 12.3 BILLION in tax revenues, so if they don't want to quit and are happy with their life choices then I'm grateful for them. Imagine every smoker quitting tomorrow, and headlines that there was a 12.3 billion gap in the UKs NHS budget this year- there would be riots on the streets .

So please, a little less hate for the smokers.

Totally agree with GingerCuddleMonster ^^thread. So annoying when you try to do everything right but only end up paying taxes to bail out all those who don't. I don't get benefits, I have to scrimp and save, I work all hours, barely see my DC and pay for childcare and don't get the free nursery places, Because I work and pay for DCs school dinners they don;t benefit from pupil premium money and activities at school, the list goes on... Now because I don't smoke I would miss out on free vouchers too.

Also didn't the test case show that financial bribes were only successful on just under a quarter of pregnant smokers? You can't compare this to open heart surgery as it was earlier. Smoking is a choice and so is giving up, not everything in life is easy!

I called you patronising arabella because you came here reckoning our opinions are based on being uneducated.

Understanding addiction doesn't mean I agree with addicts being bribed.

I think it's OK, it's basic behaviour reward (whatever that's called, I forget), this may work well with some people who maybe typically haven't always had much encouragement in life (though obviously smokers can be a diverse bunch)
Part of me thinks it might be nice to give a token voucher to everyone who is smoke free at or near term. Say 20 might help more people be on board with this (but obviously would add somewhat to costs)

mumnosbest do you realise how entitled your attitude is? This stinks of daily mail divide and conquer propaganda.

If your life is so terrible because you don't get benefits then stop working and claim income support. No one is stopping you. If you feel so robbed that you don't get these vouchers then spend £8 a day on a smoking habit and eventually you will get your vouchers, again, no one is stopping you.

But you wouldn't do that would you? Of course you wouldn't, because you know deep down that working is really best for your family, and not smoking is really best for your health.

Some people will always think the grass is greener but I'm not entirely convinced this is a case of that. If anything, this just reeks of "I want what shes got", even though what you've got is 1000 times better.

It's not that it's greener it's far from greener, but right now it seems pay in to the pot and get very little of benefit from it.

In Finland all new mothers are gifted a box or a grant (woman's choice) regardless of economic status. Women in Finland see money they've played in helping all mothers, for some the box is a absolute life savers for others it's a memento.

In Britain you seem to fall in to one of two categories the givers or the takers, and it ahouldnt feel like this, we should all feel like we all benefit from working hard, be that as a sahm or a career driven woman. Free child care for all would be a absolute life saver for many families, but will the goverment do it, will they hell.

I agree about more resources for early years/childcare Ginger and yes, Scandinavia including Finland are way ahead there. In fact as an early years practitioner I feel quite tempted to move out there for the respect and proper pay too but dc are still on secondary school conveyeur belt, and dh has a good job here (Retiring to Norfolk my plan B!)

ginger Why should they do it when people have the means to do it themselves?

While I can see your points I think we either need to be a society of givers or takers, or a society of complete equality.

Its really unfair to say that we can all earn different amounts but still all get the same benefits from the gov. We all get the same free education between 5-16/18. We all get the same free healthcare. These are two of the nations most important things and even then, people still pay for private in both circumstances. Why? Because they can afford to and its generally perceived as better.

I for one would not be happy as a single (newly, admittedly) mother working 37hrs a week with 2 children paying taxes so that people with a family income of £100k plus could have a box as a "momento".

I'd be more than happy to pay for three of said boxes if it was going to someone who genuinely needed this and would use this as a "life saver" to quote your post above.

Just as I am not happy my taxes go to pensioners who can can more than afford to heat their homes and pay for public transport. The ones who can't afford it should get it and the ones who can should pay for it.

So of course in this type of society there will be givers and takers. Shouldn't we be thankful that our life circumstances meant we could become givers, and not have to rely on taking?

If you want to take the same benefits out of the pot than those at the very bottom, whilst still contributing the same amount as before all you are doing is creating a massive gap between the very wealthy and the very poor. Is this what you are saying would want?