Creating a Smoke-Free City
The statistics on the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke are staggering: Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. It kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.
Aiming to change these numbers for the better in Montgomery, The Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) created the SmokeFree Montgomery coalition to help residents quit the habit and ensure public spaces, workplaces and more are tobacco free. This group of community leaders and organizations is dedicated to protecting the health and well-being of Montgomery citizens from the harmful effects of tobacco use and secondhand smoke and is working to reach these goals through prevention, education, cessation services, advocacy for public policy and broad-based community service.
Alabama needs the efforts of the SmokeFree Montgomery: According to the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), approximately 21.5 percent of Alabama adults are current cigarette smokers; that’s the 8th highest adult smoking prevalence rate in the nation. And 8,823 deaths in the state were attributable to smoking-related causes, including cardiovascular disease, cancers, respiratory diseases and diabetes. Tobacco use costs more than these precious lives; the total annual expense of smoking in Alabama hits $7.6 billion.
Now, SmokeFree Montgomery is looking to expand its impact by partnering with local business owners, civic organizations and others to get these core messages out:
- There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, and smoke-free policies are the only effective way to eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke.
- Quitting smoking and other tobacco use is essential to overall health and wellbeing.
SmokeFree Montgomery is promoting educational campaigns and public policy to ensure all area residents can live, work and play in smoke-free environments.
And for smokers, ADPH offers two powerful tools to help them put out cigarettes (and put down vape pens) for good:
- The Alabama Quitline, a toll-free, telephone-based tobacco cessation service (1-800 Quit Now or 1-800-784-8669) for all Alabama residents that provides free counseling and up to eight weeks of nicotine patches to medically eligible callers enrolled in the program. Services are also available at QuitNowAlabama.com.
- This Is Quitting from The Truth Initiative campaign, a free and anonymous text messaging program from Truth Initiative designed to help young people quit vaping. The first-of-its-kind quit program incorporates messages from other young people like them who have attempted to, or successfully quit, e-cigarettes. Text VAPEFREEAL to 88709 to use this service.