The Labour Party is considering requiring patients who smoke or who are obese to pledge to follow their GPs' advice.

Apart from the obvious objections, how many people are overweight or hooked on tobacco as an indirect consequence of having once foolishly trusted their doctor's judgement?

I know many a benzodiazepine victim in such a sorry position.

If the world's governments are so keen on eradicating smoking, why not issue severe warnings, stressing the highly addictive properties of cigarettes?

One scarcely needs to be a Nobel Medicine Laureate to grasp that the habit may eventually be fatal. The young often erroneously believe that they will be able to kick it long before that stage is reached.

DAVID DIMENT

Riverside Court

Oxford