Sir,
Putting aside the questionable reliability of IQ tests as a measure of intelligence ("Smoking is bad for your brain", New Scientist, 11-Dec-04), and ignoring the reverse cause-effect argument that less intelligent people are more likely to take up smoking in the first place (and less likely to give it up afterwards), has anyone considered the impact of a smoking-induced 1% loss in intelligence on the 64-year-olds in question? By my back-of-a-fag-packet calculation, I reckon this gives them the same mental age as young whippersnappers of 63 years and four months.
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