| Quit Smoking News |
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| Our Project |
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| What can parents do? |
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If you smoke:
- avoid smoking around children, especially in the house or car;
- think about stopping smoking. For information on how to stop smoking, talk
with your doctor, public health nurse, or the local lung association.
If someone else in your home smokes:
- ask them not to smoke near other members of the family;
- suggest they smoke outside the house, but not in the car
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| Let Us Know! |
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Dear X-Smokers, if you have successfully kicked the smoking habit, here is your chance to share your hard earned method with smokers who are trying to quit.
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| FAQ |
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What about the low tar/nicotine brands?
Theoretically, the low tar and nicotine brands that have
taken over a large share of the Canadian cigarette market in the past few years
may offer a slightly reduced risk of lung cancer. But only theoretically.
Several facts not widely known are:
1.The “light” effect
is generally acheived through air dilution using ventilation holes near the
filter.
2.Regular smokers who switch to those low tar and
nicotine cigarettes tend to compensate by smoking more cigarettes, or by
inhaling more deeply and longer, or by covering up the ventilation holes. Thus
they do not really reduce the amount of tar and nicotine they inhale.
3.Smokers of these cigarettes have a greatly increased risk of
heart attack because they get more carbon monoxide by inhaling more deeply and
longer.
Are mentholated cigarettes more or less harmful?
About 4% of all Canadian cigarettes sold contain some menthol. The
metholated brands contain enough to produce a cool sensation in the throat when
smoke is inhaled. Menthol does not add or detract from the harm caused by
cigarettes, so far as tests show.
Has it been scientifically proven that cigarette smoking causes cancer?
Smoking is estimated
to be responsible for 30% of all cancer deaths and specifically related to about
87% of lung cancer cases. It is also a contributory factor for the development
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| … F.A.Q. |
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Q: Is cigarette smoking truly addictive?
A: Yes, cigarette smoking can
become an addiction in the same way as the use of alcohol, tranquilizers, and
other drugs. The essential features of addition include: compulsive use of a
substance (ie., use that is no longer under the voluntary control of the user),
tolerance (a need to increase the dose to achieve the same effect), and often
physical dependence, as shown by withdrawl symptoms when use of the substance is
stopped. Many cigarette smokers show all of these features.
Q: Are there true withdrawal symptoms?
A: Yes, these symptoms include
changes in temperature, heart rate, digestion, muscle tone, and appetite. They
also include irritability, anxiety, craving for tobacco, sleep disturbances, and
other more 'subjective' symptoms. They generally diminish in seven days, but may
not disappear entirely for weeks or months.
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| H O T !!! |
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14,000 ONTARIANS
TO RECEIVE FREE MEDICATION TO QUIT SMOKING.
Province ready to help you butt out
Jan. 13, 2006. 01:00 AM
BY SCOTT SIMMIE, Staff Reporter, Toronto Star
A massive study designed to help Ontarians quit smoking is offering free nicotine replacement therapy to 14,000 smokers across the province.
Called STOP — Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients — the provincially backed study is the first of its kind in Canada. You don't need to be a patient to apply. Just a smoker with a willingness to end the habit.
"Smokers have been clamouring for this," says Dr. Peter Selby, the study's principal investigator and the clinical director of addiction programs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. "We know that there's a huge demand for this — smokers are wanting help."
Free nicotine patches or nicotine gum will be mailed to applicants who qualify after a phone interview. Judging by the response just hours after the program was announced yesterday, Canada Post will be very busy.
"Currently, we've got 150 calls on per second," Selby said early yesterday afternoon about the $3 million program.
The Ontario government approached CAMH researchers last year, asking them to come up with a proposal for distributing free or subsidized nicotine replacement therapies and evaluating their effectiveness in helping smokers quit the habit.
The province has an obvious incentive as the health-care burden of smoking is estimated to cost Ontario $1.7 billion annually. Punitive measures such as taxes and smoking restrictions aren't reaching everyone.
"I'm a big believer that anything we do on the smoking file has to have a balance," says Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson. "Because when you have 16,000 people a year in this province dying of smoking-related diseases, we have to do something different."
Pfizer Consumer Healthcare will supply Nicorette gum and Nicoderm patches at a discounted cost (paid by the province) and oversee their distribution.
Although smoking rates have declined for the past two decades, about one in five Ontarians still smoke.
Many of those are at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder — people who might consider the cost of replacement therapies (despite the cost of cigarettes), something they cannot afford to try.
Call 1-800-350-5305 to enrol.
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| FAQ |
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But aren't bad effects of inhaling these substances temporary?
Most are, but in
smokers they are repetitive and cumulative -- a pack a day smoker inhales smoke
about 102,000 times a year. If this continues year after year, the smoker's
chance for contracting a serious smoking related disease is seriously increased.
Then is all smoking damage permanent?
No, not if the smoker stops soon enough. In smokers who have stopped before the
onset of irreversible heart and circulatory disease, the body begins to repair
itself. Normally, after a year of non-smoking, the risk of a heart attack is
halved; after ten to fifteen years of non-smoking, it's about the same as that
of someone who has never smoked.
While smoking, the risk for lung
cancer continues to rise. However, once a person stops smoking, the risk for
lung cancer levels off and may even decrease. The cough of chronic bronchitis
usually disappears when smoking is dropped but the progression of emphysema may
continue.
What about filters?
Smokers of
filter-tip cigarettes may have a slightly lower risk of lung cancer than those
who smoke non-filter cigarettes; but they still have greatly increased risks of
heart attack and emphysema.
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