Put cigarettes on prescription’
|
|
Cigarettes should be treated like pharmaceuticals and be available only on prescription, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said. Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the WHO, said cigarettes were an addictive drug that should be regulated. “It makes very little sense for (nicotine) patches to be available under prescription when cigarettes are freely available over the counter,” he said. “Either patches should be made freely available, or cigarettes should be only under prescription.” He said this was the WHO’s preferred option. Nicotine patches and gum are available without prescription in the UK, but only from pharmacists. ‘Regulate tobacco like a medicine’ Gro Harlem Brundtland, head of the WHO, first called for cigarettes to be bound by the same rules that regulate the availability of other forms of nicotine at the International Conference of Drug Regulatory Authorities in Berlin. More : news.bbc.co.uk |