SIR: So Alec Martin, (Your views, May 5) thinks that he and his fellow smokers are keeping the N.H.S. going, with the taxes they pay on tobacco. Doesn't he realise that most of the N.H.S. resources are spent on patients with smoking related illnesses - cancer, bronchitis and other chronic lung diseases, blocked arteries, which lead to heart attacks, strokes and amputations, etc., and the list goes on?

I was a smoker for more than 30 years. As a result, I suffered several heart attacks over a relatively short period. I have been brought back from the dead by the crash team, and I have undergone open heart surgery, (seven bypasses). I am one of the lucky ones.

I was on holiday in Torquay when I suffered my first, and near fatal, heart attack. I was 49 at the time and in excellent health, or so I thought.

Mr Martin, please don't try to say you are doing anyone a favour, least of all yourself.

Brian Derbyshire

Ribchester Grove, Bolton

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