Warnings about the health dangers of cigarettes have been printed on packets since 1979 in Ireland and, since then, evidence about the risks of lung cancer, heart disease and respiratory illnesses has grown.
In 2000, a study in the British Medical Journal estimated every cigarette smoked took about 11 minutes off a person’s life.
But latest research, carried out by University College London and published last week in the Journal of Addiction, suggests each cigarette actually costs a woman 22 minutes of healthy life, a man 17. That means a packet of 20 will rob your life of around seven hours.