Smoking's a tough habit to break, but forcing smokers to go a little bit further to get their fix could inspire many of them to quit.
Researchers in Finland looked at data covering more than 20,000 smokers, and found for each extra 500 metres they had to go, they were between 20 and 60 percent more likely to quit.
"We found robust evidence suggesting that among Finnish adults who smoked, increase in the distance from home to a tobacco outlet increased the odds of quitting smoking," the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, concludes.
Distance doesn't appear to prevent relapses into addiction, however - there was no connection between how far ex-smokers had to go and relapse rates.
New Zealand research conducted at the University of Otago last year found a link between the density of retail outlets which sell cigarettes and smoking amongst high-school students.
Newshub.
