ANTI-smoking campaigners want cigarette machines in pubs to be replaced with nicotine gum and patch dispensers to help people quit.

Greater Manchester smoking tsar Pat Karney is spearheading the plan to try to remove tens of thousands of cigarette machines from pubs, bars and nightclubs across the region.

It follows a national ban on smoking in public places, brought in last July.

The move is part of a radical five-year drive to cut the region's smoking rate from 20 per cent, one of the highest in the country, to 12 per cent in line with California, the first American state to ban smoking in public in 1998.

Mr Karney said: "For years, the favourite territory of the tobacco industry has been bars, pubs and nightclubs, who have introduced millions of young people to a habit which will cost most of them their lives.

"Now is the time when we should be building on smoke-free legislation.

"We have to be bolder and better if we are to radically reduce smoking deaths and the deadly diseases that smoking brings.

"I have been meeting government ministers and calling for all tobacco machines to be outlawed and replaced by nicotine replacement products to encourage more people to quit smoking."

The M.E.N. has previously reported that campaigners want to ban lighting up in cars - to protect children from passive smoking.

For the same reason, they are also encouraging people not to smoke in their homes and more than 15,000 people across the region have already signed up to their smoke-free homes initiative

Studies show babies whose parents smoke are twice as likely to become cot death victims and children are much more likely to suffer from a range of illnesses.

The region also had the highest number of people setting a quit date and quitting, according to NHS statistics.