Smokers desperate to kick the habit received a boost last night when the government announced that it would make nicotine replacement therapies available on NHS prescription.

The move, which coincides with No Smoking Day today, was welcomed by anti-smoking campaigners, who said it would help all smokers but especially those who are unemployed or on low incomes.

By the end of next month GPs will be able to prescribe products such as nicotine patches, gum and inhalers which previously had to be bought from pharmacies. Certain therapies - including some patches, lozenges and gums - will also be on general sale in supermarkets and other shops.

The public health minister, Yvette Cooper, said: "We know that 70% of smokers want to give up, and nicotine replacement therapy is an effective treatment that doubles rates for people giving up. Making it available on prescription will ensure the widest possible availability to all smokers."

On making some nicotine replacement therapies available for general sale, she said: "It is absurd that people can buy cigarettes in supermarkets and newsagents but cannot buy patches or gums that they want to help them give up."

The Department of Health has estimated the cost of prescribing the nicotine replacement therapies at between £10m and £40m, depending on how many people take them up. About 13m adults in the UK smoke cigarettes.

But campaigners are sure that the new policy makes sound economic sense. There are 120,000 smoking-related deaths each year and smoking remains the UK's biggest single cause of premature death and ill health. It causes 30% of cancer deaths (and 82% of lung cancer deaths), 25% of heart disease deaths and 83% of deaths from bronchitis and emphysema.

A spokesman for the pressure group Action on Smoking and Health said last night: "We have campaigned for years for this. It is a way of treating 50 diseases associated with smoking before they happen. It has been a stupid anachronism that these therapies, which are so effective, are not available on the NHS."

Campaigners point out that smoking is heavily concentrated in areas of deprivation, among those on a low income and the unemployed, who might not try to give up if they had to pay for treatments.