NYC To Casual Smokers: Quit Or Die!

Smoking, Nanny Bloomberg likes to remind us, will kill you. But don't think that your "I only smoke bummed ciggies at parties" routine makes you safe. Oh, no. The Department of Health wants you to know YOU COULD STILL DIE. So they're launching a print and TV campaign to help "light smokers" become "nonsmokers." Because you don't want to die, do you?

According to the city "light smokers" (who smoke less than 10 a day) make up 34 percent of the city's smoking population. But:

Like heavier smokers, light smokers are at an increased risk of smoking-related death and disease, such as heart attack, stroke, aneurysm and some cancers. Adults who smoke even one to four cigarettes per day have nearly three times the risk for heart disease than that of a non-smoker. Another study in Tobacco Control found that women light smokers, ages 35 to 49, are five times more likely than nonsmokers to develop lung cancer. Men have 3 times the risk. Research also points to an increased risk of mortality for light smokers compared with non-smokers. Among women, in fact, light smokers had a 4- to 6-year average loss of life compared to non-smokers.

You hear that ladies? Those casual puffs are especially killing you. But it does't have to be so (if you don't want it to). So, through January 15, the city is doing one of its regular free patch and gum programs, this time aimed at the light smoker set. To get yours, call 311 or go click here. Beyond the print ads, the DOH made another commercial for this campaign (not yet online), anyone seen it yet?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Garth Johnston in News on December 30, 2011 1:27 PM

Comments [rss]

fosiacat

i wouldn't give a shit if people were dropping pills, for example. fuck up your own life, fine. but if im walking down the street and someone is throwing pills in my face........... see? difference.

Eric Dorris

I must say it's rather disturbing to see how some people treat smokers nowadays. I'm a nonsmoker and have had relatives who have died from lung cancer, but I don't treat people as lesser for their choice to smoke cigarettes. Yes, I occasionally have to deal with the irritation of people smoking thoughtlessly right next to me in an uncomfortable setting, but anytime I've asked them to be more aware of their second hand smoke they've responded very nicely and considerately. There are so many other carcinogens and toxins in our environment that it's simply ignorant to pretend that smoking is the only one significant enough to worry about. You keep being your pretentious self, belligerent nonsmoker, in the end you're the one suffering the most. Lung cancer is awful, but so is the quality of life derived from having a stick up one's ass...

Guye Jern

I only smoked at breaks too. I took six or seven of them and brought my work with me. After the first year of this silliness, I quit cold turkey. And I was old school, used to smoke at my desk.

Rocknrope

They should just run a campaign that says "Given everything we know about cigarettes and the tobacco companies, you have to be a fucking moron to keep smoking."

Anyone who smokes at this point doesn't give a shit about dying from it.

pendejito

As a smoker, I couldn't agree with you more.

Now leave me alone!

fosiacat

i would, if you fuckfaces weren't blowing your disgusting shit in my face all the time.

aspiringrapper

Drop dead and we will be glad to.

h153r

Well my tax dollars will support your kids and pay your medical bills when you get sick.

arboc

A pack of cigarettes costs about 50-75 cents to produce and transport. The other $12 I pay for a pack are all taxes.

da_phonz

Do tax dollars really pay for chemo and radiation or hospital bed rent and service?

h153r

Yes they certainly do under medicaid and medicare.

da_phonz

Thanks, that's good to know.

h153r

Smokers are drug addicts.

da_phonz

100% legal drug addicts that is.

h153r

That is very true. The sad part of this is that nicotine alternatives are no better than cigarettes. You wouldn't give a meth addict lolly pops made of meth because common sense says that it really wont help them, just because you put it in a different form. Don't forget these alternative forms of smoking are just drug company products who have no interest in you quitting. In fact, a lot of these are Johnson and Johnson products, who had a monetary hand in creating a study that says their own products will help people....

pendejito

So are coffee drinkers, what's your point?

h153r

Caffeine doesn't tax society and ruin lives the way nicotine does.

cetriche

Coffee makes me gassy. Potentially lethal

Torta Potty

Wait, that's maybe the dumbest thing I've read/heard all day. Just because you can't see coffee taxing society and ruining lives right in front of you it's not? I drink coffee all the time but I don't kid myself about where it's coming from.