HEALTH: Plan to allow smokers time off work to attend clinics

The cost to human health is obvious. Fifty thousand deaths are linked to smoking every year in the UK. The economic cost is five billion pounds. A controversial suggestion that smokers should be allowed time off work to attend classes to help them kick the habit has claimed it will be better for health and better for business. The idea is part of a range of measures being recommended by the government's health watchdog. Smokers groups called it absolutely ridiculous. An ITV news investigation reveals that many therapies for quitting smoking are under-regulated and overpriced.

ITN Source | April 25, 2007