The Great American Smokeout still go strong over 40 years later
For more than 40 years, the American Cancer Society has hosted the Great American Smokeout on the third Thursday of November, which this year was November 18th. The Great American Smokeout gives an opportunity for people to live healthy and smoke-free lives. It provides individuals, community groups, businesses, health care providers, and others the opportunity to encourage people to use the date to make a plan to quit or plan in advance and initiate a smoking cessation plan on the day of the event. The event challenges people to stop smoking and helps people learn about many tools they can use to help them quit and stay tobacco-free.
The Great American Smokeout started back in the 1970s. The idea grew from a 1970 event in Randolph, Massachusetts by Arthur P. Mullaney. Mullaney asked people to give up cigarettes for a day and donate the money they would have spent on cigarettes, to a high school scholarship fund. In 1974, Lynn
R. Smith, who was the editor of the Monticello Times in Minnesota, spearheaded the state's first Don't Smoke Day. On November 18, 1976, the California Division of the American Cancer Society nearly got one million people to quit smoking for the day, and a year later in 1977, they took it nationwide.
Cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year. In 2019, there were an estimated 3.1 million current U.S. Adult smokers. To be defined as a current smoker, a person who had smoked less than or equal to 100 cigarettes during their lifetime and now smoked cigarettes either every day or some days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Some statistics from 2021 are secondhand smoke causes 1.2 million deaths worldwide and smoking is one of the world's leading causes of impoverishment. According to BMC Medicine, 67% of smokers die from smoking-related illnesses including lung disease, heart disease, and over 13 types of cancer.
While quitting may not be easy, the American Cancer Society is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to provide help and support.