That’s the cost of the individual drugs and replacement therapies and not the total cost of prescribing smoking cessation, which involves other costs, including payments to pharmacists offering support to quitters.

And the figures don’t represent all the products issued to help smokers give up, being a tally of prescriptions only. They don’t include items purchased over the counter.

Latest figures show a meteoric rise in prescribing for smoking cessation since the year 2000. In Tayside the cost of prescribing products that year was £122,513 rising to £791,403 in 2008, the most recent year for which statistics for individual health boards are available.

The health board says the 2008 figure represents 24,792 items dispensed to people stopping smoking, or 411,600 days of individual smoking treatment.

Andrew Radley, NHS Tayside Consultant in Public Health (Pharmacy), said there had been a substantial increase in the number of people looking help to kick the habit in recent years.

“Stopping smoking is one of the most important things you can do to improve the health of yourself and your family,” he said.

“The numbers of people giving up smoking has increased substantially in Tayside over the past five years.”

He added that 4176 smokers came to smoking cessation groups and pharmacies last year following the introduction of the controversial quit4u programme that gives smokers £12.50 a week in shopping vouchers to quit.

In Fife the cost of prescribed products was £120,026 in 2000, rising to £868,476 in 2008.

ISD Scotland, the national organisation gathering information and statistics, said that £11.3 million was spent across Scotland last year on smoking cessation medicines, compared to £9.4 million in 2008.