• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Cricketers who Smoke ?

Swervy

International Captain
i play cricket and I smoke...always like to time my ciggy to coincide with me about to walk out to the middle with the bat...you never know I might be out there for a while
 

lord_of_darkness

Cricket Web XI Moderator
dont think anyone from NZ smokes.. maybe has after quitting cricket.. but it would be crap for their image if they smoked while they were still playin etc..
 

Swervy

International Captain
one of the great cricket photos is of someone smoking..Botham in the changing rooms at Headingley in 81 at the end of play when he has scored 145*, with a cigar in his mouth..top stuff
 

Mr. P

International Vice-Captain
Nobody from Australia smokes at the moment i think. I know Warne gave them up.:) Good on him, you have to be an idiot to smoke.:)
 

AUST_HiTMaN

International Debutant
I beg to differ, unless he has given up since the Cairns test match. He signed a few peoples autographs with a smoke in one hand, pen in the other hand. At least Lehmann had the decency to butt his out before he signed autographs!
 

a massive zebra

International Captain
Smoking Kills.

1.1 Smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable illness and premature death in the UK. Smoking kills over 120,000 people in the UK a year - more than 13 people an hour. Every hour, every day. For the EU as a whole the number of deaths from tobacco is estimated at well over 500,000 a year. A generation after the health risks from smoking were demonstrated beyond dispute, smoking is still causing misery to millions. Smoking is still killing.

1.2 The Government is determined to see a major improvement in health in the UK. To help that, we have proposed tough and specific new targets for health improvement, backed with clear proposals for action to achieve them. Achieving these targets can only be done if we tackle smoking. One of the targets is to reduce cancer deaths. Another will be to reduce heart disease deaths. Cancer and heart disease are the two most common fatal diseases in this country. Smoking is a major cause of cancer and heart disease.

1.3 The new targets will reinforce our key goals for public health improvement, which were set out with proposed targets in our consultative document earlier this year, Our Healthier Nation†3. They are: to improve the health of the population as a whole by increasing the length of people's lives and the number of years people spend free from illness; and to improve the health of the worst off in society and to narrow the health gap. Achieving the targets and these key goals will give everyone in our country a better chance to enjoy a full, healthy and prosperous life. It cannot be done unless we tackle smoking.

1.4 We made clear in our election manifesto that we intended to take action over smoking. We are doing so with the proposals we are publishing here. Tackling smoking is central to cutting deaths from cancer and heart disease. Tackling smoking is central to improving health in Britain.

Smoking - the facts

1.5 Tobacco first came to Britain in the sixteenth century. But smoking as a mass habit is a phenomenon of the twentieth century. So too is smoking as a mass killer.

1.6 Smoking peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, and fell steadily in the 1970s and 1980s4. Currently, there are around 13 million adult smokers in the UK5. But the long downward trend in smoking may be levelling out. Adult smoking rates rose in 1996, the last full year for which figures are available, for the first time since 1972. We may be seeing the beginning of a new upward trend in smoking. Among people aged 16 and over, the smoking rate of 28 per cent in England was the same as in 1992 and was up on the 1994 rate of 26 per cent6. The adult smoking rate is particularly high in Scotland and Wales at 32 per cent. In No rthern Ireland it is 29 per cent.

1.7 More and more children and young people are starting to smoke. The proportion of those aged 11 to 15 who smoke regularly was 8 per cent in England in 1988. In 1996 it was 13 per cent. The upward trend is particularly notable among girls. In 1988, just one in five 15-year-old girls smoked regularly. Now it is one in three.

1.8 82 per cent of smokers take up the habit as teenagers6. Smoking is addictive, and many of the children and young people who smoke will go on to smoke all their lives.

1.9 Rising rates of children smoking are feeding through into rates of adult smoking as each successive generation gets beyond the age of 16.

1.10 Internationally, Britain smokes heavily. While the availability and quality of smoking data varies considerably from country to country, according to World Health Organisation statistics on the quantity of cigarettes consumed per person, smokers in the UK consume about 25 per cent more than the EU average, though actual smoking rates in the UK are roughly at the average for the EU as a whole.

1.11 Other countries have had considerable success in reducing smoking rates. Norway, Finland and Iceland all introduced advertising bans back in the 1970s which were followed by hefty reductions in smoking rates or tobacco consumption10. Adult smoking rates in Finland were 22 per cent in 1996.

1.12 Although Canada has taken some strong measures to tackle smoking, recent reductions in tobacco taxation have coincided with rising teenage smoking. In 1989, the US State of California introduced a comprehensive package of measures and, by 1993, average tobacco consumption per person had fallen by more than half. In 1996, adult smoking rates were 18 per cent compared with 22 per cent in the rest of the US.

1.13 Smoking rates in the UK are considerably higher than those in places like California and Norway. The general experience of other countries is that comprehensive packages of measures can lead to significant reductions in smoking.

Smoking - the risks

1.14 Most people know that smoking is bad for health. Smoking, more than any other factor, cuts people's life expectancy. As well as being the prime cause of cancer and heart disease, it also causes many other fatal conditions and chronic illnesses among adults. The dangers of smoking are clear:
over 120,000 people are killed a year because they smoke half of all who continue to smoke for most of their lives die of the habit; a quarter before the age of 69, and a quarter in old age, at time when average life expectancy is 75 for men and nearly 80 for women. Those who smoke regularly and die of a smoking-related disease lose on average 16 years from their life expectancy compared to non-smokers.

For every 1000 20-year-old smokers it is estimated that while one will be murdered and six will die in motor accidents, 250 will die in middle age from smoking, and 250 will die in older age from smoking.

Smoking is dangerous at any age, but the younger people start, the more likely they are to smoke for longer and to die early from smoking. Someone who starts smoking aged 15 is 3 times more likely to die of cancer due to smoking than someone who starts in their mid-20s.

Smoking causes 84% of deaths from lung cancer, and 83% of deaths from chronic obstructive lung disease, including bronchitis. Smoking causes 46,500 deaths from cancer a year in the UK - 3 out of 10 cancer deaths. As well as lung cancer, smoking can cause death by cancer of the mouth, larynx, oesophagus, bladder, kidney, stomach and pancreas. Smoking causes 1 out of every 7 deaths from heart disease - 40,300 deaths a year in the UK from all circulatory diseases. Smoking is also linked to many other serious conditions including asthma and brittle bone disease (osteoporosis).


Levels of smoking are particularly high among people with severe mental illness. This is likely to be one of the reasons why the severely mentally ill tend to die younger.


Some ethnic groups in the UK favour chewed or other oral tobacco, notably betel quid. All forms of tobacco cause cancer.

Treating illness and disease caused by smoking is estimated to cost the NHS up to £1.7 billion every year in terms of GP visits, prescriptions, treatment and operations.

The Health Risks of Cigarette Smoking

1.15 The UK has high rates of death due to smoking compared to most other countries in the EU. Women under 65 in the UK have the worst death rate from lung cancer of all EU countries except Denmark. They also have the second worst death rate from heart disease after women in Ireland. Men under 65 in the UK have a lower than average death rate from lung cancer, but the third worst death rate from heart disease after men in Finland and Ireland.

Passive smoking

1.16 Passive smoking - breathing in other people's tobacco smoke- also kills. While most non-smokers are not exposed to levels of passive smoke sufficient for them to incur significant extra risk, many thousands are, such as those living with smokers or working in particularly smoky atmospheres for long periods of time. Non-smokers and smokers need to be made aware of the true risks.

1.17 Several hundred people a year in the UK are estimated to die from lung cancer brought about by passive smoking. Passive smoking almost certainly also contributes to deaths from heart disease - an even bigger killer than lung cancer.

1.18 Passive smoking, even in low levels, can cause illness. Asthma sufferers are more prone to attacks in smoky atmospheres. Children, more vulnerable than adults and often with little choice over their exposure to tobacco smoke, are at particular risk.

1.19 Children whose parents smoke are much more likely to develop lung illness and other conditions such as glue ear and asthma than children of non-smoking parents. The Royal College of Physicians has estimated that as many as 17,000 hospital admissions in a single year of children under 5 are due to their parents smoking. They also estimate that one quarter of cot deaths could be caused by mothers smoking. Women who smoke while pregnant are likely to reduce the birthweight, and damage the health, of their baby.

Smoking and inequalities

1.20 Smoking more than any other identifiable factor contributes to the gap in healthy life expectancy between those most in need, and those most advantaged. While overall smoking rates have fallen over the decades, for the least advantaged they have barely fallen at all. In 1996, 12 per cent of men in professional jobs smoked, compared with 40 per cent of men in unskilled manual jobs.

1.21 Such differences are reflected in the impact of smoking on health. A higher rate of smoking among people in manual jobs is matched by much higher rates of disease such as cancer and heart disease.

1.22 Between 1991 and 1993, among men aged 20 to 64 in professional work, 17 in every 100,000 died of lung cancer, compared with 82 per 100,000 in unskilled manual work. For the same period and age group, among professional workers, 81 per 100,000 died from coronary heart disease compared with 235 per 100,000 in unskilled manual jobs.

1.23 The close link between smoking and health inequalities was highlighted again recently in the report of the independent inquiry into health inequalities chaired by Sir Donald Acheson. The report concluded that the relatively stable rate of smoking in the least advantaged groups suggests that simply intensifying current approaches would not be sufficient to tackle the problem.

Smoking - the cost

1.24 The cost of smoking is high in terms of people's health. But the cost of smoking is high in other ways too. Smoking is estimated to cost the NHS up to £1.7 billion every year. And it costs families, especially the poorest, a great deal too. It is estimated that, in 1996, there were approximately 1 million lone parents on Income Support, of whom 55 per cent smoked an average of five packs of cigarettes a week at a cost of £2.50 per pack. That means lone parent families spent a staggering £357 million on cigarettes during that year.

Smoking - Government action

1.25 The Government is determined to tackle these problems. The case for action on smoking is clear. Governments have tried in the past to reduce smoking. But while previous efforts have contributed to the steady reduction in the overall number of adults who smoke, success has been limited. Now, the rise in children smoking and the halt in the decline in adult smoking reinforces the case for new Government action. But at the same time, we recognise that Government action in areas of personal choice like smoking is a difficult and a sensitive issue. Tobacco is a uniquely dangerous product. If introduced today, it would not stand the remotest chance of being legal. But smoking is not against the law. We do not intend to make smoking unlawful. We are not banning smoking.

1.26 Currently, well over a quarter of the people of Britain smoke. The Government fully recognises their right to choose to do so. We will not in any of our proposals infringe upon that right. But with rights come responsibilities. Smokers have a responsibility to themselves - to their own health, and to ensure that in making the choice to smoke, their choice is based on a real understanding of the risks involved. With their right to smoke, too, comes the responsibility to others who choose not to smoke. Just as the Government is determined not to infringe upon people's rights to make free and informed choices, it is also determined to ensure that the responsibilities of smokers to people who choose not to smoke are carried out. That means a balance of rights and responsibilities -for those who smoke and for those who do not. Striking that balance is a clear and tough challenge - for the Government, for business, for local authorities, for voluntary groups and especially for individuals.

1.27 The Government has a clear role in tackling smoking. While it is for individuals to make their own choices about smoking, the impact of smoking on the people of Britain - on their health, in causing premature deaths, on non-smokers and in terms of its overall cost - is so great that if it we re any other cause, the Government would face accusations of negligence for failing to take action. The Government also has a clear responsibility to protect children from tobacco.

1.28 Reducing smoking will save lives. The Government intends to implement a tough and comprehensive programme to ensure that those who smoke are aware of the potential consequences of their choice, that those who do not smoke are protected against those who do, and that the number of people smoking in Britain falls.

1.29 We have already taken action, especially in Europe. The Government's proposals in this White Paper set out the major steps we now intend to take. We will support this new programme of action, with new money - more than £100 million over the next three years. We recognise the scale of the challenge we all face to reduce smoking. But in partnership with others, we are determined to meet that challenge, and to improve the overall health of everyone - smokers and non-smokers alike - in our country.
 
Last edited:

Mr. P

International Vice-Captain
AUST_HiTMaN said:
I beg to differ, unless he has given up since the Cairns test match. He signed a few peoples autographs with a smoke in one hand, pen in the other hand. At least Lehmann had the decency to butt his out before he signed autographs!
Damn you Inside Edge! Wrong again! :dry:
 

Swervy

International Captain
yes Mr Zebra, I am sure us smokers get the message...it is quite hard to give up though
 

Simon

Request Your Custom Title Now!
god knows why this thread is even a thread, but for the record i know Ian Harvey smokes too....
 

PY

International Coach
Swervy said:
yes Mr Zebra, I am sure us smokers get the message...it is quite hard to give up though
It tastes better than Yorkshire air. :D

(You getting bored of me taking the p*** out of Yorkshire yet? :p)
 

Swervy

International Captain
PY said:
It tastes better than Yorkshire air. :D

(You getting bored of me taking the p*** out of Yorkshire yet? :p)
take the p!ss out of it all you want...anyway are you not in Sheffield or something
 

PY

International Coach
I am during term-time but get my fresh dose of coastal air for 21 weeks a year. :)

Isn't Keighley flooded at the moment? Thought I saw it flooded on the news.
 

Swervy

International Captain
PY said:
I am during term-time but get my fresh dose of coastal air for 21 weeks a year. :)

Isn't Keighley flooded at the moment? Thought I saw it flooded on the news.
yeah bits of it are...but not so much with water, but more with chavs :D

(no but seriously, all the rivers around here are close to flooding or are flooding the area, the rain ahs been unbeleivable...have we ever had a week of such bad weather in August)
 

Top