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Editorial: An incentive to live longer
Great American Smokeout
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More from OpinionToday is the Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society. It has only one goal: to show smokers the benefits of quitting. The only question to ask, then, is why haven't all smokers quit?
Surgeon generals since 1964 have warned about the dangers associated with tobacco use. More than 438,000 people a year die because of it. Smoking remains the No. 1 preventable cause of death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Smokeout started in the 1970s and was credited with nearly 1 million quitting smoking for one day in 1974.
The effort to prevent smoking deaths comes down to those who smoke — they must want to stop. Yet, despite all the warnings, some 63 million people, or 21 percent of the population, in the United States still smoke. In 1965, a year after the first surgeon general's warning, 81 million people, 42 percent of the population, smoked.
Good progress, but not enough.
We could go through the litany of dire warnings on the risks to health and list the amount of money wasted on cigarettes. We could go through the benefits of quitting, the lowered risk of lung cancer and coronary heart disease. But 43 years of warnings should have made everyone by now aware of the dangers of smoking.
So, we urge smokers to consider today as the time to act. For this day, become smokeless.
Leave your cigarettes at home. Spend the day with friends who don't smoke. Avoid activities that normally lend themselves to smoking. Instead of slipping outside at work on a smoke break, make the decision to quit permanently and then craft a plan to quit.
Your family, your friends and your health will be better for it.
Posted by sslocal on November 15, 2007 at 10:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I quit when my son was born, almost 20 years ago. Best as well as the hardest thing I have ever done.
However, I think that if you want to smoke go ahead and have at it. But please, smoke down wind.
Posted by shaver_one on November 15, 2007 at 1:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I'll smoke to that.
Just stand upwind!
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