Corrie chiefs order pregnant star to smoke

Pregnant Coronation Street star Alison King has been ordered to start smoking again for a new storyline.

The actress, who plays superbitch Carla Connor on the ITV1 soap, gave up cigarettes after discovering that she is expecting her first child with boyfriend Adam Huckett.

However, King has now been told that a new Corrie plot will see Carla taking up the habit in an attempt to reduce her stress levels. Show producers have agreed to provide herbal cigarettes for the scenes.

"She isn't best pleased. It was hard enough for her to give up in real life," a source told The Mirror. "And even inhaling smoke from herbal tobacco surely can't be a good thing for a mum-to-be."

Dr. John Moore-Gillon, from the British Lung Federation, confirmed: "If you're smoking herbal cigarettes, all you're doing is substituting the burning leaves of one sort of plant for another. People try them because they think that since they don't contain nicotine they are safer.

"Ordinary cigarettes contain several thousand compounds, but you still get tar from herbal cigarettes which could do you just as much harm."