Report: Smoking is down in Bay State

Massachusetts ranked fourth lowest in country by study

 

Smokers are becoming few and far between in Massachusetts, according to state officials. Photo: NICOLAUS CZARNECKI/METRO

 

Start to quit

The DPH announced yesterday it is extending its nicotine replacement patch giveaway through Aug. 31, due to high demand. Calls to the line have increased 20-fold this month compared to July 2007. The Quitline is 1-800-Try-To-Stop.   

 

 Thirty-five years ago Joanne Lynn took up smoking. Yesterday, she stopped.

“This is my day, I’m going to quit,” Lynn said yesterday before receiving a nicotine patch on her left arm and becoming a smiling symbol for the state’s highly successful war on smoking, which is showing “astonishing” results, according to state officials.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the adult smoking rate in Massachusetts reached a record low 16.4 percent in 2007, the fourth-lowest figure nationwide. There was a 7.9 percent drop in the number of adult smokers in the state from 2006 to 2007, also a record.

Health officials yesterday trumpeted the figures, lauding Gov. Deval Patrick and the legislature for several developments on the front, among them a recent smoke-free workplace ban and a tobacco tax jump.

Increased funding for the Department of Public Health’s Tobacco Control Program has allowed for the launch of several initiatives, and a nicotine patch giveaway through the state’s smoking Quitline has proven effective. Efforts to reach young smokers has resulted in a 15 percent drop in adolescent smokers from 2006 to 2007, according to health officials.

“This is a turning point for the state, and also for many individual people in Massachusetts,” said DPH Commissioner John Auerbach, turning to face Lynn.

Roughly 9,000 people die every year in Massachusetts from smoking-related illnesses, and costs associated with care for those suffering run around $4 billion annually, Auerbach said.

As thousands gain health insurance through the state’s new Health Care Reform initiative, and more discover the risks of smoking, officials expect these numbers to fall, as well.