Treat drink like cigarettes

I believe smokers are unfairly treated and are certainly discriminated against. The NHS is going to refuse operations for hip or knee replacement if no effort is made to give up the habit.

As a smoker (I would say that, wouldn't I?), I believe that we are being discriminated against because alcohol abuse does just as much, if not more damage to the body and alters the mind-state to a much greater degree than the cigarette.

One only needs to visit an A&E department on a Friday night to find people being sick, violent, abusive and capable of self-inflicting injury. Do tobacco smokers ever act like this?

For over 20 years I have spent thousands of pounds on cigarettes and have been led to believe that the tax generated from each packet contributes to running our health services. I did give up once, but put on so much weight that it was detrimental to my health and because I'm in a wheelchair there was no way to burn off those pounds by exercise.

It is ironic that they want the very people who help to fund their service to stop buying the source of income. Could this be a cause of some of the crises in the NHS?

Smokers are already treated like lepers and banished from public places, yet a majority of smokers will be courteous towards those who don't by avoiding smoking in their presence. Do drinkers do the same?

Furthermore, smokers have Government health warnings plastered all over their packets so isn't it about time drinkers had their bottles treated the same way?

Trevor Mytton, Shrewsbury