Published: Thursday, 25th June, 2009 8:00am

Leader: Too stressed to stub it out

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MARK Twain once said: 'It"s easy to quit smoking. I"ve done it hundreds of times.'

Perhaps it"s also easy to underestimate the dedication of smokers. Despite years of hideously graphic cancer warnings, rocketing packet prices, and an outright ban turning them into little short of social pariahs, they persist in clinging on grimly with both fingers (or finger and thumb), the thought of losing that crutch we all rely on in one form or another all too much.

Smokers in particular face a devil of a predicament at the moment. In these tough times, cigarettes would logically be the first thing slashed from any weekly budget because whichever way you look at it, they are nothing more than a costly investment in your own ill-health.

But an Ipsos Mori poll this week claims that more that a quarter of smokers are simply "too stressed" to even think about quitting at the moment, blaming job and, ironically, financial worries.

How proud we should be then, of the Berkshire smokers bucking the trend with a 42% increase in the number of people quitting through NHS services.

The location of the Stop Smoking Stand in Reading"s Broad Street Mall has been a godsend for wavering wannabe quitters, giving the thousands of smokers passing through town a ready resource not just of information (how much plainer does information get than "Smoking Kills") but crucially of support.

Try giving up something you have been doing numerous times every day for decades and see how far you get on your own.

We should be proud of the people providing smokers with a second chance, and proud of them for taking it.