The Great American Smokeout Day
Written by Reeta Hunt, Former Student on Thursday, November 21, 2013
The Great American Smokeout is an annual social engineering on the third Thursday of November by the American Cancer Society. This event encourages Americans to quit the habit of smoking by challenging smokers to not do it for 24 hours, hoping the decision to not smoke will last forever.
The first recognized Great American Smokeout was held in San Francisco’s Union Square on November 16, 1997. It originated from 1970, in Randolph, Massachusetts, when Arthur P. Mullaney suggested people give up cigarettes for a day and donate the money to a local high school. "Don't Smoke Day", or "D-Day", was promoted by Lynn R. Smith of the Monticello Times in Monticello, Minnesota in 1974.
The American Cancer Society is a nationwide voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer. Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause to disease and premature death in the United States, though about 43.8 million Americans still smoke cigarettes.
Research shows that smokers are most successful in kicking their addiction when they have support. This can come in forms such as, telephone smoking-cessation hotlines, stop-smoking groups, online quit groups, counseling, nicotine replacement products, prescription medicine to lessen cravings, guide books and encouragement and support from friends and family members.
The recovering process can be a long one depending on how severe the damages or addiction is. It can occur in small steps, in just 20 minutes your heart rate and blood pressure drop, to ones more extended, in one year the excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a continuing smoker, to something for the most critical if they are helped in time, which can be in 15 years when the risk of coronary heart disease is equal to non-smokers. Due to this program many people have turned their lives around.
