People in England want to live in a country where no one smokes

It was 1962 when the Royal College of Physicians first linked tobacco to cancer, a major public health discovery. But few could anticipate the sheer devastation that tobacco would really cause. In the following decades, the horrifying consequences have become all too apparent.

Since 1971, eight million lives have been lost to smoking and it remains the leading cause of death in the UK. It is also responsible for 16 types of cancers and accounts for six in 20 cancer deaths. These figures reveal the devastating cost behind smoking – lives ended far too soon, with an unbearable toll placed on families and communities.