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 |  | National No Smoking Day is in its 19th year of campaining to help smokers quit by increasing awareness of the damage caused by fags and by offering advice on how to stop.
Local authorities are joining in with the campaign by offering their own incentives to smokers and by helping to spread the stop smoking message.
Everyone but everyone knows smoking is possibly the worst thing you can do to your health short of attempting a game of billiards on the M6 but there are many more side-effects then lung cancer and heart disease.
Did you know smoking can cause hair loss, cataracts, wrinkles, deafness, mouth ulcers, rashes and tooth decay. Scary, isn't it? But it's never too late to help yourself.
Improvement to your health and quality of life can come in just 24 hours after your last cigarette and eventually, the risk of illness can drop to the level of someone who has never smoked.
In fact, changes come earlier than that. Within 20 minutes of your last fag, blood pressure and pulse return to normal. After eight hours, nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in the blood are halved and oxygen returns to normal.
After 24 hours, carbon monoxide has left the body and lungs start to shift tar and after just two days, there is no nicotine left in the body, taste and smell have improved - and over the next 12 weeks, dramatic improvements like easier breathing, more energy and better circulation start to occur.
Μύ| Μύ |  | Old habits start young, many smokers begin in their teenage years
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So, how do you go about stopping? Well, if you live in south Warwickshire, help is at hand from Stratford District Council.
They will be at Stratford's Safeway supermarket on Alcester Road to offer free carbon monoxide tests to smokers so they can see how much they have in their blood stream. Plus, they are offering free oral hygeine products and the first two people to commit to packing in the fags on the day can win a month's supply of nicotine replacement therapy.
Smoke Free Warwickshire and Warwickshire's Stop Smoking Service will also be there to pass on the no smoking message and offer advice on the best ways to quit.
Warwick District Council are offering a similar scheme, this time taking place at Leamington's Asda supermarket, where Ciggy Buttz - the mascot of No Smoking Day - will also be around to offer activity books outlining the dangers of smoking to children.
For more information on giving up, follow the No Smoking Day link on the left.
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