If this wasn’t such a serious topic, it would almost be funny.

Farmers, who want to earn a living, grow tobacco for big tobacco companies.
Big tobacco companies buy the tobacco to turn into cigarettes and chewing tobacco.
Big tobacco companies spend millions and millions of dollars on salaries, production, advertising, and sales.
Government rakes in millions and millions of dollars on income tax from tobacco company employees, sales (and other) tax on equipment purchased, gas employees use to get to work, and so on.
Big tobacco companies rake in millions and millions of dollars in profit.
Smokers get sick from using big tobacco company’s products.
Smokers …read more

iPhone users wanting to quit smoking now have a new tool at their disposal – a new app that will link them to the National Cancer Institute’s quitline service where they can use live txt or speak directly to a live quitline coach to get advice and help on quitting smoking.
The app, which offers smokers a proven quit smoking therapy, was developed by the School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) at George Washington University and the National Cessation Collaborative (NTCC) with support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Smokers can find this new app on their  iPhone or itunes site …read more

Ads about smoking have changed dramatically over the years. Once upon a time, when none knew any better, cigarettes were advertised as something that would make you feel good, strong, happy, even healthy.
But as more and more evidence pointed to the dangers of smoking on your health, the ads changed. They were no longer put out by tobacco companies trying to entice people to buy their product. Instead, they were produced by government departments and non-profit health organizations trying to encourage people to quit (or not to start).
And along the way, they’ve become increasing gruesome and graphic. For example, cigarette cartons …read more

Everyone knows that smoking really is bad for your health. Turns out it’s not so good for the health of the planet either.
Here’s why…

Tobacco growing requires the use of more pesticides per acre than any other crop.
Flue curing, the process of drying out tobacco leaves requires an external heat source and this contributes to deforestation. While the US mostly uses oil, coal, or liquid petroleum gas, developing countries account for 85% of all tobacco grown and use wood-burning fire for flue curing.
Each cigarette emits around 14 milligrams of fine particulate matter which doesn’t seem like much. But if you …read more

Today is the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout, an annual event that has been held for the last three decades. with the aim of encouraging smokers to quit by providing information, support, and resources.
An ex-smoker myself, I know how very, very difficult it is to give it up. But I also know the up side of giving up the smokes and I’d encourage anyone who has been thinking about giving up cigarrettes to stop thinking and act.  You’ll thank yourself in the end.
Healthbolt already has a fairly active support system going on at the comment section of a post – …read more

That’s what the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research, wanted to find out. So they did a systematic review of 17 relevant studies that had taken place in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
These studies had used mostly monetary incentives to help encourage participants to quit smoking.
Incentives such as …
- being rewarded with one lottery ticket per day if they tossed their cigarettes down the toilet.
- being offered cash incentives of $10 per month and participation in a monthly worksite lottery.
- being offered cash prizes ranging from $100 to $250, along with certificates of …read more

In a study set to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, researchers have found that quitting smoking is more often a group decision, rather than individual. What kind of group, you ask? A social group.
That’s right, according to the study, smokers tend to quit more in groups, or clusters, rather than on their own.
From 1971 to 2003, Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler from the University of California, San Diego, followed thousands of smokers and nonsmokers, concentrating on studying participants as part of a “network” of relatives, co-workers, neighbors, friends …read more