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The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will give the first 45,000 callers to 311 free nicotine patches, as part of a campaign to help New Yorkers stop smoking. The Daily News says the Pfizer-donated kit includes "a six-week course of nicotine patches, instructions, educational information and online support." Health Commissioner Thomas Friedan says the 2003 free-nicotine-patch program helped 11,000 New Yorkers quit smoking, but Gothamist isn't sure if there's follow-up after that; he hopes this year's program will help at least 5,000 to quit. Of course, many know that our Mayor has aggressively put smokers in the corner with the smoking ban at bars and restaurants. If anyone does call and get the kit, let us know!
Gothamist wonders if a handy 12-step handbook will be given away next. And the Health Department is 200 years old, while the Mental Hygiene part is just 50 years.
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i wonder if non-smokers can get another prize or cash value!
thanks for posting this.
i called and applied. it's a long hold followed by about 20 questions regarding habits and health history. they'll send a letter letting me know if i've qualified to recieve the kit which means several weeks before actually getting it. they also said they'd call or email a few times to see how it's working.
Your "free" anti-smoking kit comes at a price: your precious, personalized marketing information. Someone's definitely making money off of the smoking ban~
well... i'm honestly not too worried about info like whether i've had a stroke or heart attack in the past 2 weeks or whether or not i can smoke in my home being associated with my name and address which are already freely available. all marketing-related questions such as salary were optional. anyway, my personalized marketing info is not very precious since i'm pretty much marketing-proof.
It really is an idiotic series of questions. "How many cigarettes do you smoke a day?" "4 or 5." "So is it 4 or 5?" "I don't know - it depends." Pause of about 10 seconds, "Okay, 4." After waiting on the line for about 20 minutes after telling the initial screener you're calling about the Nicotine Patch, th e next person who gets on the phone asks you twice if you're "interested in obtaining a nicotine patch." No asshole, I just like to wait on the phone for the hell of it. "Are you interested in quitting smoking?" is one of the other dumb questions. They made two efforts to get my email address. And we don't even know it we'll actually get the patch. They to review each case and make determinations within 2 or 3 weeks...
I just signed up for this. Seems like a good deal to me. Probably will get a few spam mails, but you can always block those. Seems like the company just wants people hooked on the patches which is fine with me. A rare case of something for nothing. Bloomberg bought a few votes with this. On the other hand, I just got a bill from the landlord demanding $25 for the carbon monoxide detector they installed due to giffie miller's campaign year legislation. Hey Gothamist, what's the deal with that? Is everyone in town forced to buy these carbon monoxide detectors? I thought the city was supposed to pay for this.
no, bob, i think everyone has to pay up to $25 for those co detectors. it was in the legislation that the tenant would pay. don't know why they couldn't just strongly recommend that people buy them instead of making more laws...
thanks hijiki, I held out for a few months until I knew what the law is, but as long as I know everyone's coughing up, I'll just pay the 25 bucks. I don't know why it's gifford millers business if I want to risk carbon monoxide poisening. If he wants to be my nanny he should pay for it or at least take me out to the park in a giant stroller.
I don't live in NY but wish I had this opportunity. All of you people whining should go down and spend the several hundred dollars for what you're going to get for free. I seriously can't believe the whining...
mode d'emploi