NOVEMBER:
Tobacco Cessation Toolkit
The Military Health System has designated November as Smoking Cessation Month as an opportunity to increase awareness of the benefits of tobacco-free living. Tobacco-free living is avoiding use of all types of tobacco products — including cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, pipes, and hookahs — and also living free from secondhand smoke exposure.
What do you need to know to effectively raise awareness about tobacco cessation?
- Every year on the third Thursday of November, the Great American Smokeout (GASO) is observed. GASO is sponsored by the American Cancer Society and serves as a challenge for smokers to quit, even just for one day.
- Of the 20 million smoking-related deaths since 1964, 2.5 million were caused by exposure to secondhand smoke.
- Smokers have a 30 to 40 percent higher risk of diabetes than non-smokers.
- If we could help every smoker to quit smoking and keep young people from starting in the first place, the results would be staggering:
- 500,000 premature deaths could be prevented every year.
- At least $130 billion in direct medical costs for adults could be saved every year.
- 5.6 million children alive today who ultimately will die early because of smoking could live to a normal life expectancy.
- At least 88 million Americans who continue to be exposed to the dangerous chemicals in secondhand smoke could breathe freely.
- More than 16 million people already have at least one disease from smoking, but this number could be prevented from growing.
- One out of three cancer deaths in this country could be prevented.
- At least $156 billion in losses to the American economy — caused when people get sick and die early from smoking — could be prevented.