Stub out the asbestos risk by turning down fake cigarettes

Dear Sirs,

Stub out the asbestos risk by turning down fake cigarettes

Smoking is dangerous enough; it’s written in bold print on every packet of cigarettes across the country that SMOKING KILLS. And with an estimated 114million fake and unregulated cigarettes sold each year across just a few London boroughs (Southwark; Bexley; Bromley; Greenwich; Lambeth; and Lewisham), smoking could carry another deadly health threat – asbestos. As the General Manager of the UK Asbestos Training Association, I implore your readers to stub out this serious risk to their health.

A recent announcement from The Local Government Association said that the cigarettes contained various unwanted ingredients, including, amongst others, deadly asbestos fibres. When inhaled asbestos can cause lung conditions such as mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer developing later in life for which there is no cure. So far hundreds of thousands of the cigarettes have been seized by local authorities up and down the country, including Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham, as well as by these proactive London boroughs mentioned.

The good news is fake cigarettes are easy to spot and now you know the dangers, you might think twice about the cheap price for your wallet by considering the hefty weight it could have on your life. The packets often have no health warnings on them, the packaging is of lower quality and much of the printing may be smudged or blurry. The cigarettes themselves are also of lower quality.

Asbestos is still the biggest work place killer in the UK; don’t bring that killer home with you in a packet of fake cigarettes. Please remember, if the price of the cigarettes looks to good to be true, deadly asbestos could be lurking.

Yours sincerely
Craig Evans
UK Asbestos Training Association

ENDS

Photograph and caption:
Craig Evans, General Manager of UKATA (The UK Asbestos Training Association).

Original Source:
The Guardian, 23.08.2014
New effort to stop fake cigarettes filled with excrement, mould and asbestos
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/23/councils-crack-down-fake-cigarettes-excrement-mould-asbestos

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Ref: UKATA0147 – Asbestos Cigarettes