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Floridians Light Up Anti-Smoking Lines

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 28, 2008

Maybe it's the rising price of gas and food that's making more Florida smokers kick the habit. Maybe it's the growing societal pressure not to light up. More likely, it's the surge of dollars into an advertising campaign - the result of a constitutional amendment voters passed two years ago.

Reasons aside, more Floridians are calling the state's free stop-smoking help line - 1-877-U-CAN-NOW. That's good news.

Last month, the Florida Department of Health reported that Florida's Quitline had a record number of calls. In the first quarter of 2008, more than 25,000 people called for help kicking their addiction - more than the number from all of 2007.
Quitline has been bolstered by new funding from the state's 1998 landmark settlement with Big Tobacco. Two years ago, voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring the fund's managers spend at least $57 million a year on anti-smoking messages. As a result, Quitline ads are now all over the Internet, on highway billboards and on the radio. And the advertising campaign is influencing behavior.
Quitline offers strategies and self-help materials to overcome tobacco cravings, including individualized counseling. The Department of Health has smartly targeted key groups - pregnant women and minorities - with anti-smoking materials.

Any caller over the age of 18 can get free nicotine replacement patches, lozenges or gum.
Tobacco addiction is tough to kick. Most people try and fail multiple times before they finally do. But health professionals say those who pair nicotine-replacement programs with counseling have a better chance of success.

Surveys show that those who use Quitline are four times more likely to quit than those who try on their own. Still, the success rate isn't great. A 2007 report says about 11 percent of Quitline users actually quit smoking. But it's a start.

The tobacco industry spends more than $1 billion a year marketing cigarettes in Florida. And while it agreed in the settlement not to target children and teenagers with advertising, the industry continues to pass out free tobacco products at college sporting events and night clubs. Nearly 27 percent of Florida's young adults smoke, surveys show.

It shouldn't take a constitutional amendment for the state to spend the tobacco settlement money as it said it would.

But now that it's there, it's good to see the anti-smoking message gaining ground.

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