Doctors of Ontario urge smokers to quit smoking in 2008

Ontario's doctors are encouraging those who smoke to make 2008 the year they quit.

Doctors and other primary care providers have been working with patients to help them develop a plan to quit smoking and can help increase the chances of success.

"Doctors understand that smoking is a serious addiction and we want to provide patients with the support they need to become smoke-free," said Dr. Ken Arnold, President-elect of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA).
"The beginning of a new year is always a good time to renew your commitment to improving your health and to make the decision to quit smoking for good."

The OMA is offering the following tips for individuals who are looking to quit smoking:

• If you smoke, avoid exposing others (especially children) to second hand smoke
• Never smoke in a car with children present
• Nicotine Replacement Therapies, like nicotine gum and the patch, will help you deal with the cravings. Keep nicotine gum with you at all times. It's available over the counter at pharmacies
• Remove ALL cigarettes and ashtrays in your home and car
• Regular exercise can help calm you down and relieve tension
• Make an appointment to see your doctor to discuss how they can help
• Make a resolution that you're going to have a healthy and smoke-free 2008

Tobacco use is the number one preventable cause of death and disease in Canada.
One in every four deaths from heart attacks and strokes in Canada is caused by smoking, and tobacco use causes about 30 percent of all cancers in Canada and more than 85 percent of lung cancers.
In Ontario and each year 16,000 patients die prematurely because of smoking.

"Make a commitment to be smoke-free in the New Year to keep you, and those around you, healthier in 2008," said Dr. Arnold.

"Everyday doctors treat patients whose health is compromised from smoking, which is why we have been advocating so strongly to protect Ontarians from tobacco use and second-hand smoke."

Editor's opinion:

"Does anyone know anyone who quit smoking with the 'help' of nicotine patches or gum?
You could get addicted to those instead and they don't solve the problem anyways.

Nicotine, the main addictive substance in tobacco products, is processed by the human body in a few hours, hence the need to light up a new one after approximately and averagely an hour.

If a smoker quits smoking cigarettes their body is in complete control.
Many smokers quit smoking cigarettes daily but they never experience any physical problems.

Even chain smokers hardly ever wake up in the middle of the night to 're-fuel', unlike a Heroin or Cocaine addict who often wake up at night to feed the addiction.

A smoker can simply spend a couple of hours watching a movie in a theater or being on an airplane, without having a cigarette and without shaking, screaming and sweating.
This shows clearly that smoking cigarettes is not at all a physical addiction!

There are always smokers who claim that they cannot sit for such long hours without cigarette while I'm sure they never even tried it or are simply lying about it, it's called addictive behavior.
This, in my opinion, only tells us that smoking is a mental addiction.

Therefore quitting smoking doesn't require products that only prevent your body to be in a state of total nicotine neutralness as a starting point to deal with the more important job: the bending of the lies your telling yourself in your mind why you shouldn't quit or just not yet.

Take it from an extreme, 2-packets-a-day, EX-smoker since 7 or 8 years (don't really remember!).
There is another painless, effortless, inexpensive and effective way to quit, since it deals with the mental and not the physical part of the addiction.

Believe it or not, it only requires to read a very amusing book, written by Allen Carr, called "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking"

It was the most valuable, yet in-expensive present I ever gave myself."

Source: CNW Group

Smoking costs more than only your health!

A new survey suggest that smokers in British Columbia could save between $2,000 and $4,000 a year by quitting and that is only the half of it.

Smokers, their family and friends, who would be spared the perils of their secondhand smoke would all have a dramatically improved health outlook and lower life insurance premiums,

In addition, Dr Fred Bass, an expert in smoking cessation and consultant to the Health Heart Society of British Columbia, found that smokers and their cohorts across Canada could save the health care system more than one billion dollars a year.

He added, "About seven per cent of our total health care bill is attributable to smoking, and those costs are not just in the last years of a smoker's life.
Research shows that smoking also interferes with recovery from surgery and those who stop just two months before surgery face fewer pulmonary and cardiovascular complications and spend fewer days in intensive care."

There's no doubt that smokers themselves are most aware of the impact that smoking has on their wallets. What many smokers may not realize is how much it adds up to in the long term. The average 45-year-old smoker, who quits today and puts the money into savings, could have more than 100,000 dollars to spend during retirement while they enjoy their smoke free health, according to a survey commissioned by Pfizer Canada, a pharmaceutical company.

Almost five million Canadians, or 19 percent of the population, are smokers. According to Health Canada, close to half of smokers will die from smoking before they turn 70 years old.

British Columbia has the lowest smoking rates in Canada at 16.4 per cent, Bass said, although it jumps from a teenage rate of 12.4 per cent to 24 per cent between the ages of 20 to 25 when young people have money, are out of school, and are targeted by tobacco marketing.

ASH