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First-Time Father-to-Be Quits Smoking, Wins $5,000 in The QuitCash Challenge(TM) 

2009 has been a monumental year for Doug Dawson. Motivation of first-time fatherhood paired with "moneyvation," from QUITPLAN Services' QuitCash Challenge, helped the 31-year-old Columbia Heights man quit a 17-year smoking habit and win The Challenge. Nearly 2,000 Minnesotans, including Doug, attempted to quit tobacco use during October for a chance to win the $5,000 grand prize.

On Thursday, November 19, the day of the 34th annual Great American Smokeout, QUITPLAN Services will celebrate Doug's success in quitting smoking with a celebration event at the Mall of America in Bloomington. In addition to Doug's $5,000 grand prize, another contest participant will receive a $2,000 Mall of America gift card and two others will receive $1,000 Gander Mountain gift cards. . . .

"We were delighted to learn that Doug had used The QuitCash Challenge and QUITPLAN Services to help him and his family stay tobacco-free," said David Willoughby, Chief Executive Officer at ClearWay Minnesota(SM), the nonprofit organization that administers QUITPLAN Services. "We encourage Minnesota tobacco users looking to quit to use QUITPLAN Services any time of the year to achieve success."

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EDITORIAL: Coffin nails: State smoking worst  

Sadly, West Virginia has America's worst rate of deadly cigarette smoking and exposure to dangerous second-hand smoke inside homes. That's the finding of a Centers for Disease Control survey released last week. A CDC announcement said:

"Among states, smoking prevalence was highest in West Virginia (26.6 percent), Indiana (26.1 percent) and Kentucky (25.3 percent). ... Home exposure [to second-hand smoke] varied widely from 3 percent of adults exposed in their homes in Arizona to 10.1 and 10.6 percent, respectively, in Mississippi and West Virginia." . . .

Nicotine is as addictive as heroin. Tobacco companies are basically drug pushers, because their profits depend on getting young Americans hooked, then reaping revenue from them for years - with little concern for health damage they suffer.

Today, the American Cancer Society will hold its yearly Great American Smokeout, urging hooked people to overcome their craving for cigarettes. It isn't easy. Personal courage and willpower are required to fight off the deadly habit. But we urge West Virginia's excessive number of smokers to be brave and break free.

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Man U Football Rival Fans In UK Give Smoking The Red Card 

Chelsea fans may be currently celebrating being top of the Premier League, but there is room for improvement off the pitch as they struggle to kick the habit and give smoking the red card.

Today, as the latest standings in the Smokefree United League are announced, it's revealed that only 77 Blues fans have signed for Smokefree United to quit smoking - leaving them trailing behind their Man U rivals who top the table with 274, more than treble the number of Chelsea fans pledging to quit.

Smokefree United is a virtual club of quitters that provides coaching and support to help football fans and players to stop smoking, www.nhs.uk/smokefreeunited. Launched in October by the NHS and supported by the Premier League and football legends Ian Wright, Gianfranco Zola, John Barnes and Andy Townsend, more than 1,500 fans have already signed up. In addition to quitting advice and entry into competitions to win money can't buy prizes, footballers and fans that sign up boost their team's position in the Smokefree United League.

Other winners in the Smokefree United League are Liverpool, who despite lagging six places behind Chelsea in the Premier League, have raced ahead in the quitting stakes and come in second with 182 quitters. Arsenal are in third with 138 fans followed by Tottenham and Chelsea who with 84 and 77 fans respectively are battling it out for the fourth spot.

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Recent Decline in U.S. Smoking Prevalence Stalls  

The United States likely will fall well short of the Healthy People 2010 objective of reducing to less than 12 percent the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults.

According to a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, or MMWR, article released Nov. 13, the proportion of U.S. adults who were cigarette smokers declined from 24.1 percent in 1998 to 19.8 percent in 2007. However, the figure increased to 20.6 percent in 2008.

The CDC said in the MMWR article that none of the states are funding tobacco control programs at levels the agency has recommended. CDC officials said funding at recommended levels is needed to continue and improve tobacco control programs, especially to reach populations that have disproportionately high rates of smoking. . . .

The AAFP's tobacco cessation program, Ask and Act, encourages members to ask their patients about tobacco use and to then act to help them quit. Through the Ask and Act program, AAFP members have access to a variety of resources to help patients quit using tobacco,

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Great American Smokeout '09: Time to Quit 

The less you smoke, the more birthdays you'll have, says the American Cancer Society as it encourages smokers to quit on Thursday, the day of the 34th Great American Smokeout.

Research shows that smokers who quit at age 35 gain an average of eight years of life expectancy, and those who quit at 55 gain about five years. Even long-time smokers who quit at age 65 gain three years.

Smokers who quit before age 50 cut their risk of death within the next 15 years in half compared to people who continue to smoke. In addition, a former smoker's lung cancer risk 10 years after quitting smoking is about half that of someone who still smokes, the society said.

There are immediate health benefits, too. Heart rate and blood pressure decrease 20 minutes after people have their last cigarette.

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Predictors of smoking relapse by duration of abstinence: findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey  

Aim To explore predictors of smoking relapse and how predictors vary according to duration of abstinence. . . .

Findings Relapse was associated with lower abstinence self-efficacy and a higher frequency of urges to smoke, but only after the first month or so of quitting. Both these measures mediated relationships between perceived benefits of smoking and relapse. Perceived costs of smoking and benefits of quitting were unrelated to relapse.

Conclusions Challenging perceived benefits of smoking may be an effective way to increase abstinence self-efficacy and reduce frequency of urges to smoke (particularly after the initial weeks of quitting), in order to reduce subsequent relapse risk.

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The natural history of quitting smoking: findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey  

Aims To describe the long-term natural history of a range of potential determinants of relapse from quitting smoking.

Design, setting and participants A survey of 2502 ex-smokers of varying lengths of time quit recruited as part of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States) across five annual waves of surveying. . . .

Findings Most theorized determinants of relapse changed over time in a manner theoretically associated with reduced risk of relapse, except most notably the belief that smoking controls weight, which strengthened. Change in these determinants changed at different rates: from a rapidly asymptoting log function to a less rapidly asymptoting square-root function.

Conclusions Variation in patterns of change across time suggests that the relative importance of each factor to maintaining abstinence may similarly vary.

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• Seventy per cent of Bulgarian smokers wanted to quit, survey says  

More than 70 per cent of smokers in Bulgaria wanted to give up smoking, Yulia Medichkova of the Greenwild Foundation was quoted by Bulgarian news agency BTA as saying on November 19 2009.

Medichkova presented the results of a one-year campaign entitled The Culture of Breathing. Over 50 per cent of Bulgarians approved of increased restrictions on smoking that will be introduced by mid-2010. Bulgaria ranks third in the world in terms of number of smokers, after Japan and Greece, Medichkova said.

What was more worrying, according to another survey released by the Health Ministry on November 17 2009, was that every second pregnant woman in Bulgaria smoked during pregnancy.

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In Memory of Patrick Swayze, Songwriter Encourages People to Throw Away Cigarettes - and She'll Give You Her New CD - Free! 

Karen Sokolof Javitch is hoping that her new CD: STAR TRACKS - THE TRIBUTE ALBUM will encourage people to throw away their cigarettes! "It's worth a try," says Javitch, who decided to dedicate her CD to Patrick Swayze, who recently died of pancreatic cancer. "He was a 3-pack-a-day smoker, and never quit, even when he got sick." Her mother also died at age 56 (like Patrick) and she is sure cigarette smoking contributed to her death. "The one thing we have control over in getting cancer is cigarette smoking!" "THROW THOSE CIGGIES AWAY AND I'LL SEND YOU A FREE CD TODAY!" And of course that includes President Obama, who she surmises has not kicked his habit.

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Massachusetts' Success in Helping Medicaid Recipients Quit Smoking Shows Why Congress Should Require Cessation Coverage in Health Reform 

Massachusetts today announced extraordinary results from its aggressive efforts to help Medicaid beneficiaries quit smoking by providing easy access to coverage for smoking cessation medication and counseling.

Massachusetts reported that smoking rates among beneficiaries in its MassHealth program plunged by 26 percent in the first two and a half years after the state began providing coverage of smoking cessation in July 2006. Costly medical procedures among those who utilized the cessation benefit also fell dramatically. Among benefit users, there were 38 percent fewer hospitalizations for heart attacks and 17 percent fewer emergency-room visits for asthma symptoms in the first year after using the benefit. There were 17 percent fewer claims for maternal birth complications since the benefit was implemented, state health officials reported.

Massachusetts is leading the way in demonstrating that health insurance coverage for smoking cessation quickly improves health and saves lives, and no doubt reduces health care costs as well.

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New Yorkers say they won't stop smoking tobacco products during 34th annual Great American Smokeout 

New York City has one of the lowest smoking rates in the country - just 16% - after years of aggressive ad campaigns and strict smoking laws, including the city's groundbreaking smoking ban at bars and restaurants.

A new ad campaign launched this year shows a disgusting blackened lung caused by years of smoking. Previous anti-smoking ads showed a Bronx woman with 20 amputations she said resulted from smoking.

But about 1.3 million New Yorkers still smoke, the Health Department says, and getting the holdouts to kick the habit might be the hardest part.

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The Castro Tells the Grim Reaper to Butt Out!  

“BUTT OUT! Ending Tobacco Industry Exploitation of the LGBT Community” will mark the Gay American Smokeout by staging a public spectacle to draw attention to the impact of Big Tobacco on the LGBT community, on Nov. 19 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza. BUTT OUT!, a local LGBT advocacy group that works against the tobacco companies, and dozens of local concerned citizens dressed in black and wearing skull makeup to represent those who have died from tobacco, will chase out of the Castro the tobacco company’s proxy, the Grim Reaper, standing close to 10-feet tall while wielding a three-foot cigarette. State Senator Mark Leno, who has pledged to refuse campaign donations from tobacco companies, will be speaking at the event.

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Survey finds many smokers make last minute plans to quit 

Although a majority of smokers want to quit smoking, many delay making a plan to quit until the last minute, according to a recent American Cancer Society online survey of people who say they want to. Twenty-two percent of smokers surveyed planned to quit within 24 hours, while 30 percent said they planned to quit within a week or two. The American Cancer Society stresses the importance of planning ahead to quit smoking as research shows that preparing for quitting by allowing enough time to get nicotine replacement therapy, and planning how to deal with cravings and tempting situations, greatly increases the likelihood of succeeding. The Society encourages smokers to use the annual occasion of the Great American Smokeout® on November 19 as a date to make a plan to quit, or to plan in advance and quit smoking that day.

The survey, conducted via the Great American Smokeout Web site (www.cancer.org/GreatAmericans) also found that 76 percent of smokers surveyed did not know that they could receive free help

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Musicians, tobacco-free advocates band together for Great American Smokeout 

Tobacco-Free Living of Louisiana is teaming up with local musicians and businesses in downtown Alexandria to throw a block party as part of the Great American Smoke Out 2009 to help clear the air about secondhand smoke.

Region VI Tobacco Prevention and Cancer Control Coalition, Rapides Parish Healthy Initiatives Coalition and Louisiana Youth Prevention Services will partner to host "Live on Air" 6-10 p.m. Thursday on Desoto Street between Third and Fourth streets in downtown Alexandria to raise awareness -- and to have some fun while they're at it.

Tipitina's Music Co-op has partnered with the event to provide music by local artists -- including DC Sills, Dick Larry & Mick, Bombs Away, Gutta Boy Muzik and Dynamic Jake -- that will cover a wide range of musical tastes.

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City wants grant to battle smoking 

The American Cancer Society asks smokers to give up the habit for one day today as part of the Great American Smokeout.

A $2 million federal grant could help St. Joseph fight an anti-smoking battle of its own with longer lasting results.

The City Council gave the City of St. Joseph Health Department the green light Monday to apply for the Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant — part of the American Reinvestment & Recovery Act of 2009. If the funding is approved, the health department will work with Heartland Health, the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services, Buchanan County, the St. Joseph School District, Missouri Western State University, the St. Joseph Youth Alliance and the University of Missouri to implement an anti-smoking marketing campaign, smoking cessation services and other programs.

City Health Director Debra Bradley provided statistics showing the severity of St. Joseph’s smoking problem among young people. According to a study from the health department and Heartland Health, 56 percent of local youths age 18 to 24 smoke, while roughly one in four adults are smokers.

Council member Mike Bozarth was the most vocal opponent of Monday’s resolution. As a smoker and opponent of expanded government regulations, Mr. Bozarth said he didn’t want the council to take part in a program that could restrict citizens’ personal choices.

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