No Smoking Day
I sometimes receive emails from people who offer to write postcards for ianbek – guest blogs. I normally turn them down, (after all, ianbek is my blog … I used to refer to it a ‘personal’ website), but sometimes they give me idea for posts.
Last month I received an email which didn’t offer to author a postcard but asked:
… there are a couple organizations I volunteered with this past year that I think would make really great additions to your resource section: QuitDay.org, who helps communities around the world become smoke-free and healthy, and the American Cancer Society, who also promotes health through education and awareness.
Today seemed an appropriate day to feature these two sites because it’s No Smoking Day.
Now, to be honest, No Smoking Day is an annual health awareness day in the United Kingdom which is intended to help smokers who want to quit smoking.
The first No Smoking Day was held appropriately enough on Ash Wednesday in 1984, and it now takes place on the second Wednesday in March – hence today: Wednesday 9th March, 2016.
Each year, the campaign is promoted with a theme in the form of a short phrase. In 2010, this theme was “Break free“, and in 2011 it was “Time to quit?“. I am not sure what the theme is for 2016 but, judging from their website, it looks like “Be Proud to be a quitter“.
Originally established by a charity with the same name, it’s now run by The British Heart Foundation … and is funded by a coalition of governmental and voluntary sector organisations with an interest in health and health promotion.
There seems to be some success behind the campaign, because research suggests that nearly two thirds of smokers want to quit and other research, conducted following the campaign in 2009, found that some 10% smokers quit on No Smoking Day that year.
Mind you, as Mark Twain is reputed to have said: “Giving up smoking is easy. I have done hundreds of times.”
The irony, of course, is that this actually supports the notion that it is not easy … at least sustaining and keeping to the decision is not easy. Unlike so many things in life, including starting to smoke, it’s not really a one-off moment. Once you start smoking then you become a smoker … but when you try to give it up, you don’t necessary become a non-smoker overnight … it is so easy to relapse and become a recidivist.
The recovering alcoholics are adamant about this … you cannot give up gradually and even taking a single drink can lead to a return to ‘old habits’.
That’s why the British Heart Foundation stress the importance of support from family members if the quitter is going to stick to their resolve and be successful.
The Quit Day website also stresses this and has a wealth of information about the effects of quitting – and the withdrawal symptoms that the tobacco addict is likely to experience.
Quit Day is not tied to any particular day of the Calendar … any day can be Quit Day … and even the British site says that their team of support is available to help wannabe Quitters throughout the year – not just on No Smoking Day … which is just a focal point for the annual campaign.
Both the British and American sites carry information about the effects of smoking and reasons sites why smokers should consider quitting; offering different techniques and support services to help those who take the decision. They both have sections, not just for the wannabe quitter … but also for friends and family who want to be supportive.
If No Smoking Day is a British initiative … there is an international equivalent – World No Tobacco Day: observed around the world every year on 31st May and has been going since it was established by the World Health Organization in 1987. It is actually aimed to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption around the globe not just smoking … but, of course, smoking is the main target.
Here in Kyrgyzstan – there is a similar site, help.kg, created for rendering informational support to
- members of the National Coalition “Smoke Free Kyrgyzstan”
- health professionals and associations working to implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, (FCTC), and Law of the Kyrgyz Republic on the protection of health of citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic from harmfull tobaccco impacts
- members of the population in the protection of health against harmful tobacco impact,
- non-smoking members of the population in the protection of their rights for a clean and smoke free environment,
- smokers in their effort to quit smoking,
- young people in making decisions about whether or not to start smoking.
They also offer a free telephone help line for those who want give up smoking.
There have been several moves to try and control smoking … with graphic health warnings, (including colour photographs of diseased lungs and the such like: smoking causes lung cancer, smoking and gangrene, smoking and heart disease, smoking and strokes, smoking and lung problems in children, smoking and impotence, smoking and senility, smoking and the health of your infant, smoking and diseases of the mouth), printed onto cigarette packets, rules about where smoking is and isn’t allowed … but I am not sure how rigourously they are enforced.
Part of the reason, I think, is that we grow tobacco and the Reemstma factory used to one of the largest foreign investments in the country, employing people and contributing to the budget … but another part is that an awfully large proportion of the population smoke.
Bishkek