Anne Marie Kiely from Cork , was prescribed Champix in 2006 and paid € 450 (£ 400 ) for a course of treatment .
She said : “ It was a huge amount to pay but against the overall price of cigarettes it seemed worth it at the time .
“ Before I started the tablets , I was in good health physically and mentally . By the time I sought medical advice to come off them , I had lost three stone , my appetite was gone and I had to be prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping tablets .
“ There was no such thing as vaping at the time , only the mini inhalers which were useless . I stayed off cigarettes for six months with Champix , but I couldn ’ t finish the prescription .
“ I was exhausted , nauseous , depressed and anti-social . I almost lost my job because of them .”
Ireland has set the goal of reducing the amount of smokers to five percent by 2025 as part of the Tobacco Free Ireland Initiative . One in five Irish adults smoke daily and half of all Irish smokers will die from a tobacco-related disease .
Despite the government ’ s ambitions to drastically reduce smoking numbers , the Health Service Executive does not endorse vaping as an alternative to tobacco .
“ We are disappointed that the Department of Health in Ireland does not yet recommend vaping as a quit smoking tool .”
The HSE . ie website says : “ E-cigarettes are still fairly new , so we don ’ t yet know how safe they are or if they help people stop smoking . Because of this , we don ’ t recommend e-cigarettes to help you quit smoking . We recommend using stop smoking medicines like nicotine replacement therapy ( NRT ) and Champix .”
Dr Máirín Ryan from the Health Information and Quality Authority said : “ Smoking is a major public health problem in Ireland . One in five deaths each year is due to tobacco smoke . There are approximately 820,000 smokers in Ireland , with half making at least one quit attempt each year . Yearly expenditure on smoking cessation activity is estimated to be over € 40 million .”
Irish Vape Vendors Association spokesperson Declan Connolly says that IVVA were “ disappointed that Department of Health in Ireland does not yet recommend vaping as a quit smoking tool , despite the fact that vaping is the most popular quit smoking method in Ireland and is provided at no additional cost to the state .”
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