Don't smoke, warns BAT chief

The head of Britain's biggest tobacco company has confessed that people are "better off" not smoking and he himself is put off for health reasons.

Martin Broughton, the executive chairman of British American Tobacco (BAT), made the admissions when asked about how he would have broached the issue of smoking with his own children.

Mr Broughton, 55, who has the occasional after-dinner cigar, said his own son and daughter do not smoke but he would have warned them if they did.

"I said to them, 'I would advise you not to smoke. But if you want to smoke it is your affair. It is not good for you. You are better off not smoking," he said in an interview with The Times.

He went on to say that he accepted there were "health risks" attached to smoking. "I am not a smoker but I am a drinker. I know it is not good for me but I take the choice," he said.

BAT, the maker of Lucky Strike and Kent cigarettes, said this week that it expected good growth for 2002 despite tough economic conditions and the problem of contraband cigarettes. The group reported a 36 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to the year ending in December.

Part of its financial success was through its strategy of encouraging smokers under the age of 30 to switch to BAT brands.

But the BAT spokesman David Betteridge said last night: "The Times has revealed nothing new about our attitudes to smoking and health. It's on our website that smoking is risky, and can cause serious diseases.

"We say, 'If you're worried about the health risks of smoking, don't smoke, but if you're an adult and want to smoke, fine'.

"We make a product to meet the demand. There are one billion smokers in the world, and I would challenge you to find anyone who doesn't know there are risks."

However, Mr Broughton's comments were last night welcomed by lawyers who are taking on BAT and other tobacco firms on behalf of smokers whose health has been affected by cigarettes. Yvette Cooper, the Public Health minister, also welcomed what she said was the tobacco industry's recognition of the harm that smoking could cause.

* Alcohol misuse is costing the NHS £3bn a year and adds an extra burden on demoralised staff forced to deal with drink-related hospital admissions, according to a report by the charity Alcohol Concern. It said alcohol was implicated in 33,000 deaths a year – a 33 per cent rise since 1984.