Role model well worth emulating

8:18am Tuesday 13th May 2008

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The banning of smoking in public places was an important step forward in the clean-air fight. Not only did it ensure that non-smokers don't have their lungs assaulted by other people's smoke, but it also provided smokers with fewer opportunities to indulge their habit - and consequently with an incentive to stop.

Some people have taken the message on board and are now ex-smokers. Others, though, continue to resist the irrefutable evidence that a smoke-free lifestyle is best.

The new campaign launched by Bradford and Airedale Teaching Primary Care Trust is an imaginative attempt to persuade a specific group of smokers, Asian men, that they would be doing themselves a big favour if they cut tobacco out of their lives.

Similar campaigns have been run before, during Ramadan, when it is forbidden to smoke during the hours of daylight. This, though, extends it into the summer via the Over & Out Knock Smoking For a Six campaign and utilises Yorkshire County Cricket Club star Adil Rashid to spearhead the drive towards a healthier lifestyle.

Rashid is a local hero - a clean-living, fit, sporty role-model. Who better to help the PCT to tell smokers about all the support that is available to help them to quit and to persuade them to take advantage of it?

The aim is to have at least 500 men pledged to give up smoking for good by the end of the summer. That will not only be 500 lives improved from a health (and financial) point of view, but will also set 500 examples that others will hopefully be inspired to follow.