Quit Smoking Today
SD Health Department’s quit smoking campaign adds online component
PIERRE, S.D. — The state Health Department is expanding a quit smoking campaign to include a web-based program.
The department said the online program offers information, motivational messages, step-by-step guides and support from others who have quit smoking.
A grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pays for the expansion.
The Health Department offers other smoking cessation help through a phone-based service.
A 2008 survey found that 17.5 percent of South Dakotans smoke cigarettes.
“Quitting” video inspires Nunavut students
Students in Nunavut have chosen “Quitting,” a short video filmed by three Inuit youth, as the most powerful story about the challenges and benefits of quitting smoking.
The short video came in first among seven tobacco clips, shown during “the Smoke Stories: Quit Clips by Inuit Youth” video screening contest, organized by the Inuit Tobacco-free Network.
“Quitting,” filmed by three Inuit youth, Kendra Tagoona of Ottawa, Crystal Navratil of Inuvik and Nancy Etok of Kangiqsualujjuaq, includes personal interviews: Vicky Chevrier talks about her feelings when she first saw pictures of a smoker’s lungs; Jeannie Pascal talks about her friend who quit smoking after 46 years; and Mahtoonah Argna’naaq shares how proud she is that her boyfriend is trying to quit.
“It gets easier and easier,” says Chevrier in the vido. “I’m doing everything I possibly can.”
This video also includes black and white images of cigarette packages and vintage footage about the harms of tobacco use.
Thirty-eight classrooms from 12 Nunavut middle and high schools viewed various video clips filmed by Inuit youth for the Inuit Tobacco-free Network, run by the Ottawa-based Inuit Tuttarvingat health organization.
Students then voted for the video which they thought had a powerful enough message to be aired on television. Many held group discussions about issues such as tobacco use, quitting smoking and the effect of second-hand smoke.
Students finally selected “Quitting” as their favourite video clip.
“This contest gave youth a chance to watch people’s stories about their decision to start smoking, the physical and emotional effects of smoking, and what inspired them to quit,” said Dianne Kinnon, the director of Inuit Tuttarvingat, in a March 24 news release.
Classes which participated in the video screening contest could win either a $500 gift card for book purchases or a flip video camera for their class.
Innujaq School in Arctic Bay won the grand prize, a $750 gift certificate to purchase books or equipment.
The filmmakers of the winning video were also awarded prizes for their creativity, the news release said.
Quitting Smoking Before Surgery Not Risky, Study Finds
Doctors can safely recommend that patients quit smoking any time before surgery, according to a new study, Reuters reported March 17.
Past research had suggested that patients who quit smoking in the last few weeks before surgery suffered more post-surgical complications. As a result, some doctors recommend not quitting within eight weeks of a planned surgery.
The new study reviewed the results of nine different studies (and a total of nearly 900 patients) and found that in all of them, patients who quit smoking in the eight weeks before a planned surgery did not have more complications; and one study showed they had fewer complications. Patients who quit more than two months in advance of surgery also had fewer complications.
“It’s certainly better if [patients] quit earlier,” said one of the study’s authors, Dr. Peter Hajek, of Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry in Britain. But quitting any time, he said, was still a good idea.
“Quit early if you can,” he said, “but if you can’t, quitting late is also alright.”
According to the study abstract, “further large studies would be useful to arrive at a more robust conclusion,” but there was no reason doctors should not tell their patients to quit smoking any time prior to surgery.
“We are pretty sure that until some new evidence of harm comes along…there is no sign of any danger,” said Hajek.
Dr. Philip Devereaux disagreed. “It’s not conclusively shown that it is safe to stop smoking prior to surgery,” he said.
Devereaux is a heart doctor and epidemiologist at McMaster University in Ontario who co-authored a comment on the study. He and a colleague wrote that the new analysis did not “definitively answer the question raised,” and that the “optimal timing of smoking cessation for patients seen close to their scheduled surgery awaits further research.”
Hajek and one of his co-authors indicated in disclosure statements appended to the research that they they have consulted with and received research funding from several makers of smoking cessation drugs.
The study, “Stopping Smoking Shortly Before Surgery and Postoperative Complications,” was published online March 14, 2011, in the Archives of Internal Medicine.