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No longer will a patient at Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center be seen dragging an IV outside in order to get a puff from a cigarette.
Providence is now smoke-free since a ban on smoking inside or outside of the hospital went into effect.
“The idea is to practice what we preach,” Alice Coen, hospital director of quality and accreditation, said Friday.
Providence initiated the new policy in November as part of the Great American Smokeout.
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CentraState Healthcare System plans to go smoke-free on all of its campuses effective November 2008, system officials announced.
While smoking has been banned within CentraState Medical Center and other facilities in the health system for years, the new smoke-free initiative, dubbed SAFE (Smoke-free Air For Everyone), will apply to the exterior surrounding grounds, including parking lots, as well.
The announcement coincided with the American Cancer Society's annual Great American Smokeout, held last week, which challenges smokers to quit.
Magnets aren't just for the refrigerator anymore. One company says its magnets can help people quit smoking. But is it possible? The Healthline 3 Team put some new smoking cessation products to the test.
Thursday is the Great American Smokeout and there are a couple of new products which are supposed to help people kick the habit. We wanted to know if they work.
Welcome to Las Vegas. It's as difficult to stop smoking here as it is in Hollywood. But a company called Zerosmoke claims it can help with two tiny biomagnets. They're placed on either side of the ear.
As one who started smoking at age 12 but stopped a decade ago, Clayton Hieb has two words to say about tobacco: "It stinks."
For the 31st Annual Great American Smokeout, the Rapid City man wants the thousands of Black Hills area and the 45 million smokers in the United States to give up their stinky habit for 24 hours on Thursday, Nov. 15.
To break the addiction, the American Cancer Society has set up Thursday's quit date.
On the annual day that challenges smokers nationwide to quit, North Carolina is seeing its own successes as hundreds of 18- to 24-year-old smokers have taken steps to kick the habit. A record number of calls to QuitlineNC, following the launch of the state's first-ever QuitlineNC media campaign, proved that young smokers in North Carolina are not waiting until today's Great American Smokeout® to make their commitment to good health. Funded by the NC Health and Wellness Trust Fund (HWTF), the "Call It Quits" campaign is working to reduce the number of young smokers in North Carolina.
Yet, despite the well-publicized health risks connected to smoking, the military has witnessed rising smoking rates among younger servicemembers in recent years, Tornberg said.
“Unfortunately, our smoking rate is higher than the civilian norm,†Tornberg acknowledged. “We have about a 32 percent smoking rate within the services.†Surveys show most military smokers are young people holding the ranks of private through staff sergeant, he said.
Servicemembers cite stress or boredom as reasons for taking up smoking, Tornberg said, noting that most military smokers pick up the habit after completing initial military training. Other servicemembers start smoking, he added, after they’ve been deployed overseas.
The military offers smoking cessation assistance through its health care facilities, Tornberg said, as well as a hotline to help smokers quit. The DoD-sponsored toll-free smoking cessation Quitline is available at 888-742-0742.
The military has been tracking servicemembers’ smoking habits for the past 40 years or so, Tornberg noted. The good news, he reported, is that overall smoking within the military has dramatically decreased over that time period.
The Health Promotion Department of Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) strongly encourages Sailors to take part and quit smoking in the Great American Smokeout Nov. 16. . . .
NMCP also offers several other avenues for tobacco cessation. For help, visit the American Cancer Society's Web site at www.cancer.org, or call the Centers for Disease Control at 800-CDC-1311. Individual Navy medical centers also usually offer tobacco cessation classes to help smokers quit, often offering cessation aids, like nicotine gum, patches, or prescription drugs. To sign up for these classes, contact your medical provider.
It has never been a better time to quit smoking.
That has always been the message from public-health advocates, but with a statewide smoking ban looming, some smokers may be paying more attention this year.
Last Thursday was the Great American Smokeout, an annual "holiday" created by the American Cancer Society to encourage smokers to put down tobacco for one day and consider quitting for good.
But this year brings an added twist: There are 43 days until a ban on smoking in public places takes effect. On Jan. 1, it will become illegal to smoke in bars, restaurants, workplaces and almost everywhere else in Illinois.
Interest in smoking-cessation programs, especially by companies looking to encourage employees to quit, is way up, said Kathy Sullivan, director of the Rockford Chapter of the American Lung Association.
Public health advocates Thursday made a public request to Price Chopper and Hannaford Supermarkets to remove the tobacco advertisements in their stores.
Thursday was the American Cancer Society's 31st Great American Smokeout, a day dedicated to anti-smoking efforts.
More than 3,000 people in the Capital Region signed petitions asking the stores to make tobacco advertising and tobacco products less visible.
few realize the damage smoking causes throughout the body's vascular system. Smoking damages the blood vessels and smokers are at risk for all vascular diseases including peripheral arterial disease (PAD), stroke, heart attack, abdominal aortic aneurysm and subsequent death. This year for the Great American Smokeout interventional radiologists are urging Americans to quit. As vascular experts these doctors see first-hand the damage that smoking causes to the arteries.
The disabling leg pain that some smokers suffer from can be caused by PAD, clogged arteries in the legs that limit their ability to walk ordinary distances. "Smokers are always amazed that in many cases there is a marked turn around in their ability to walk if they quit smoking. They realize -- my gosh, I didn't have to live like this," says interventional radiologist Ted Chambers, MD. Just like clogged arteries in the heart, clogged arteries in the legs also increase the risk for a heart attack or stroke.
Smokers across the country took part in the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout on Thursday, November 15th, by smoking less or quitting for the day, or longer. But how many smokers will take the next step, and kick the habit for good?
Any smoker will tell you, it's a tough habit to break. But there are plenty of success stories out there.
John Allen, 28, is our Creative Services Director at WLOX-TV. He was smoking over a pack a day when he decided to quit a year and a half ago. He says his young daughter was his inspiration.
Come January, lighting up in a restaurant or bar in Baltimore will be banned. In February, the ban goes statewide.
With the limits, Maryland will join more than 2,200 communities and 17 states now smoke-free - covering more than half the country's population. And many local restaurants have already gone smoke-free. Airplanes are out. And other facilities, such as Howard County General Hospital, are getting in on the ban early.
So why not get a jump on things by quitting now? Today is the American Cancer Society Great American Smokeout.
To mark the Smokeout, a traveling photo display is available for viewing today of three Minnesotans who struggled to go smoke-free. Their stories are showcased in this exhibit, which can be seen today at Smiley's Clinic, 2020 E. 28th St., Minneapolis.
Those visiting the exhibit, open from 1:30 to 5 p.m., also can see how their own faces would become wrinkled and discolored if they smoked for years. Age-progression software demonstrations will show the effects of smoking compared to the natural aging process.
The exhibit is underwritten by ClearWay Minnesota, an independent, nonprofit antismoking organization whose funding includes money from the state's 1998 tobacco settlement.
The 2004 statewide smoking ban went into effect amid claims that it would create as many problems as it solved. For one thing, it was feared that outdoor smokers would produce a cloudy miasma, a toxic gauntlet at the entrances to restaurants, offices and bars.
Indeed, for a while that was a problem. Nancy Delaney of the Peabody Licensing Board recalls walking past hardy bands of smokers congregating outside all sorts of buildings in every kind of weather.
"But you don't see them standing around anymore," she said. At least not in significant numbers. "Maybe they've adjusted. Maybe the smokers have just given in."
Just before the Great American Smokeout on Nov. 15, a transformation seems to have occurred, altering the atmosphere in all sorts of establishments and even changing the behavior of many smokers.
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center marked the American Cancer Society Great American Smokeout today with a new version of its ASPIRE multimedia Web-based tobacco prevention and cessation program for adolescents and a partnership with the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and the American Cancer Society (ACS).
ASPIRE, which stands for "A Smoking Prevention Interactive Experience," was developed for middle and high school students and will now complement HISD's health and physical education curriculum. The program includes colorful animation, interactive experiences and videos and is unique in that adolescents may participate regardless of whether or not they smoke.