Oregon Smokers Urged to Participate in 30TH Annual Great American Smokeout

Thursday is the Smokeout: if you are thinking about quitting, call the Oregon Tobacco Quit Line – (800) QUIT-NOW.

(SALEM) - Statistics show as many as 18.9% of Oregonians smoke. Of those, 76% want to quit.

Although quitting tobacco can be hard, it can be done and the most important thing to remember is that help helps.

Tobacco use can cause lung cancer, as well as other cancers, heart disease, and lung disease.

Smoking is responsible for 1 in 3 cancer deaths, and 1 in 5 deaths from all causes. Another 8.6 million people are living with serious illnesses caused by smoking.

What better day to give up tobacco for good! Oregonians from across the state are expected to participate in the Great American Smokeout® this year.

If you are thinking about quitting, call the Oregon Tobacco Quit Line – (800) QUIT-NOW.

The Quit Line is a service provided by the Tobacco Prevention and Education Program, Oregon Public Health Division, DHS.

The call is free and the quit coaches will offer you great ideas, tips and support as you go through the process of quitting. Statistics show that those who use coaching help when they quit -- whether they call the Quit Line or go to a class -- have double the success of those who don’t.

Once you decide to quit, take advantage of medication. Nicotine replacement therapy is available through the Quit Line and is a standard benefit through PEBB as are other medications.

People who use coaching help and medication have triple the success of those who use neither.

When you quit, you will be healthier, and your loved ones will be healthier because they won’t be breathing your secondhand smoke.

You will have more energy for activities you love and more time left in your life to do them. If you need any more incentive to quit, read the following list – then – call (800) QUIT-NOW. This could be the most important phone call you ever make!

Within 20 minutes after you smoke that last cigarette, your body begins a series of changes that continue for years.

12 hours After Quitting: Carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.

2 Weeks to 3 Months After Quitting: Your heart attack risk begins to drop. Your lung function begins to improve.

1 to 9 Months After Quitting: Your Coughing and shortness of breath decrease. 1 Year After Quitting: Your added risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker’s.

5 Years After Quitting: Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker’s 5-15 years after quitting.

10 Years After Quitting: Your lung cancer death rate is about half that of a smoker’s. Your risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas decreases.

15 Years After Quitting: Your risk of coronary heart disease is back to that of a nonsmoker’s.

(Information courtesy of Oregon Public Health Division, DHS; Tobacco Prevention and Education Program.)

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Henry Ruark November 17, 2006 9:35 am (Pacific time)

Al et al: Mankind has been fighing apathy, ignorance --and human nature uninhibited by socialization-- ever since pre-Biblical days. Choose channel, mode and method to share only possible learning-vehicle: Dialog with those you learn to trust, from what they've ALREADY learned !

Albert Marnell November 17, 2006 9:25 am (Pacific time)

When people wake up to the fact that all of their elected officials from local officials to the President are beholden to monied interests, maybe then cigarettes will be exposed for what they are. Marijuana will be exposed for what it is not. B17 will be back in our diets to greatly reduce all kinds of cancer. Until people accept that even their Town Supervisor is beholden, you might as well forget everything and just take from this life what you can. The fact the most Americans have never even heard about the Illuminati or know how the Federal Reserve System rips-off the average citizen with their debased non-backed printing presses leaves me feeling that I will never see progress in my lifetime. For the record, before I die in the next few decades, young people should know that we have made great technological advances but emotionally people have stayed the same or gone backwards. Technology is a piece of cake. Raising Human Consciousness is harder than putting someone on the moon.

Henry Ruark November 17, 2006 12:04 am (Pacific time)

My Dad died partially due to complications from long exposure to a smoke-filled office, before longtime efforts that are now routine. Cig-poison has been known to producers ever since the 17th Century...so what do we wait for, as we in society pay billions for its deadly impacts? Anyone involved is "in it" for dollars and cannot avoid responsibilities for its proven, documented, death-dealing consequences.

Donna November 16, 2006 8:04 pm (Pacific time)

I got off of smoking, it was one of the hardest addictions to get over. Harder than any other drug I have ever done...and sometimes it got so bad I nearly had car accidents because I found myself desperately reaching around for a light and couldn't find one for my next cigerette..at times it nearly killed me and possibly others. I beleive it is a drug that should be just as illegal as meth. or coke or crack...it's bad news...so glad I was able to overcome that cigerette addiction!

Anonymous November 16, 2006 10:59 am (Pacific time)

Has anyone every tried nicotine replacement? I tried it once and felt like vomitting the rest of the day! Why is that? I dont see how it is supposed to help if it makes you sick to your stomach!

DV November 16, 2006 10:55 am (Pacific time)

I forgot what today was and already failed :(

Henry Ruark November 16, 2006 10:02 am (Pacific time)

To all: Anyone needing strong factual information re nicotine will find it in THE RUNAWAY JURY, by John Grisham...award-winner novel.Please note copyright date: 1997 !!! Facts stated thus well-known, apply to drug-addiction generally.

Donna November 14, 2006 2:40 pm (Pacific time)

Nicotine takes a full month to get out of your system once stopped. That's 2 weeks more time than illegal drugs to get out of your system. Nicotine is also more addictive than illegal and far more difficult to get off of than illegal drugs. So, what's my point? I dont have one.

Henry Ruark November 14, 2006 2:15 pm (Pacific time)

Kurt: Apolgies: meant PDF, standard file exchange via internet. Share you intense feelings re many points, mostly corporate-greed produced but made possible via perverted politicians, too. Don't wish to abuse time-space here, so ID-self with emailer to Editor and we can continue, probably adding to mine own learning needs.

Henry Ruark November 14, 2006 11:21 am (Pacific time)

Meliss: Sorry about that...seem to have misspelled that crucial term credibilities. But don't let that stop you, since it never bothered the Founders, either...

Kurt Huckee November 14, 2006 10:15 am (Pacific time)

Henry, Would you explain your discomfort with my comment? I have given facts on almost all my comments. Let the history books argue, they are never the same. I do not even know what a PFD is. B17 has been removed from virtually all foods. It cures cancer. Cancer is big business. B17 was discredited by the F.D.A. I have no respect for the F.D.A. It is beholden to powerful corporations and individuals. I know many people who say that B17 or Laetrile as it was called, saved their lives. Imagine a world without cancer? Imagine people from the medical profession in the unemployment line. It is the same with big oil. We could have been done with it decades ago. Big oil won and destroyed alternative fuel patents. There was recently a film in theaters, "Who Killed the Electric Car". Watch it and find out. I do not understand your reaction. Yes, I am abrasive because I am tired of all the nice-nice-polite insipid pabulum.

Mallissa Gillacutty November 14, 2006 9:57 am (Pacific time)

Yes Henry, I agree. If the troglodytical protrubarant masses do not properly expose their CDM's to the Ignoramic personas such as yourself then how does one expect to be juxtaposed?

Henry Ruark November 14, 2006 7:17 am (Pacific time)

Kurt: Democratic dialog demands something besides belly-button feeling...put up your ID, supply something besides your b-b feeling...or be denied any credibitilities left. IF you supply ID-EMailer to Editor, will gladly supply PFDs which may properly inform you.

Matt November 13, 2006 5:03 pm (Pacific time)

The date of the Great American Smokeout is November 16th and is always on the third Thursday of November, one week before Thanksgiving

Kurt Huckee November 13, 2006 1:20 pm (Pacific time)

That is why black hash or just good old fashioned marijuana should be legal. One inhale of black hash and you are done for the day! Look Ma....No Cancer! Pass the B17 instead of a one-a-day while you are at it. Sorry big Tobacco and big crooked Pharma!

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