Blimey, what a week, eh? It’s dark when you go to work and it’s dark when you come home. You’re going to bow to the inevitable social pressures and spend money you haven’t got on Christmas. The news is full of how the terrorist hordes are poised to kill every one of us in the most terrible ways imaginable. Why not have a nice calming cigarette to soothe your nerves? Or on the other hand, don’t. Just don’t, alright?

Before he died, the much lamented comedian and smoker Bill Hicks used to berate the non-smoking members of his audiences. ‘You
know what doctors say,’ he would tell them, ‘”Shit, if only you smoked we’d have the technology to help you”. I got all sort of neat gadgets waiting for me, man. Oxygen tent. Iron lung.’

But Bill, as much as it pains us to say it, was wrong. In Britain at least, lung cancer is a one-way ticket. On the express. According to Cancer Research UK, only 25% of lung cancer sufferers are still alive one year after diagnosis. It’s 7% after five years.

Christ, when we read that we were so scared we had to have a cigarette to calm us down.

This cheery little statistic comes via Dr Crippen, the NHS Blog Doctor, who is a vital caution against having anything seriously wrong with you if you want the NHS to fix it. (Read his full diagnosis of NHS lung cancer treatment).

As the good doctor says, lung cancer sufferers in the US and Europe are twice as likely to still be alive after five years. That’s because treatment is better funded and regarded by the governments in those places. In the UK lung cancer is *bad* cancer.

If you do insist on getting cancer, breast is best apparently. It’s sexy cancer. Treatment is better funded by the Government and receives more attention from specialists. Doctors are, as Dr Crippen puts is, ‘nihilistic’ about treating lung cancer - the patient is stuffed so why bother with expensive treatments to prolong his or her life?

Home Secretary John Reid never misses an opportunity to remind us that he’s the only thing that stands between us and the aforementioned terrorist hordes. How many people has al Qaeda killed in the UK this year so far? Zero.

Back in 2004, he said that for some people, notably the Great Unwashed on their sink estates, ‘the only enjoyment sometimes is a cigarette’. He was against a smoking ban. He was also Health Secretary at the time. Really. Now, how many people does smoking kill in the UK *every year*? Around 114,000 (that includes passive smokers for any of you non-smokers enjoying a quiet moment of non-coughing satisfaction).

John Reid: far more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden. QED.

Now, pass that crack pipe, would you?

(First published in this week’s The Friday Thing.)

Update: Jesus Christ. I smoked my last ever cigarette yesterday. (via, again, Dr C.)