The workplace is a wonderful location to launch highly successful Great American Smokeout promotions. Because adults spend the majority of their day at work, the office is an ideal place to help smokers, chewers, and dippers quit. With new legislation and public support of no smoking policies, Great American Smokeout is also an appropriate day to initiate new "No Smoking" policies in the workplace.

To begin, the Great American Smokeout coordinator should schedule a meeting with top management, department heads and in-house medical personnel to develop ideas that are best suited for the work environment. Collaborating with a representative from the American Cancer Society can provide additional support and easy access to American Cancer Society materials, literature, posters, videos, and educational programs.

When planning an activity, consider all employees, including hourly, shift, part-time, and minimum wage employees. Remember to include unions or labor relations in any Great American Smokeout planning committees you organize.

Promotional ideas that have proven successful in worksites across the nation include:

• Send flyers informing employees about your planned Great American Smokeout activities and asking for employee participation in the event.
  
  
• Hold an informal sign-up breakfast for smokers and nonsmokers who have ‘adopted’ a fellow employee. Hand out Great American Smokeout materials and treat the participating employees to juice and muffins.
  
  
• Create a competition between departments or regional offices to collect the most "kept" pledges to quit smoking.
  
  
• Feature a "Cold Turkey" special on the company cafeteria menu and give cold turkey sandwiches to those who have pledged to quit for the day.
  
  
• Raffle a "cold turkey" for Thanksgiving to Great American Smokeout participants or hold a company drawing.
  
  
• Remove cigarette vending machines from the property as part of a new smoke-free policy. Or, at the very least, display a Great American Smokeout poster prominently on all cigarette vending machines in the workplace.
  
  
• Ask nonsmokers to give up something to empathize with smokers. Design pledge cards for the nonsmokers so they can indicate what they will give up, such as coffee, chocolate, or soft drinks.
  
  
• Set up Great American Smokeout stations where smokers can trade cigarettes or smokeless tobacco products for chewing gum, carrot sticks, or lollipops to help them "lick" the habit.
  
  
• Make Great American Smokeout part of an employee health promotion or wellness program. Arrange for blood pressure screenings, fitness activities, and healthy diet counseling for smokers trying to quit and for nonsmokers as well.
  
  
• Have a former smoker from your company or organization write an article for your newsletter or local paper. Ask him or her to describe the reasons for deciding to quit, the difficulties and encouragements along the way, and life after cigarettes. Reading an account by someone who has “been there” will show smokers that quitting is possible, and encourage them to persevere.
  
  
• There’s nothing like an incentive to help strengthen the motivation to quit. Offer a cash prize or gift card for smokers who quit on or before the Great American Smokeout and remain smoke-free through the New Year. If your budget is tight, enter all names into a drawing for a single prize.
  
  
• Create a quilt with different squares representing reasons to quit smoking or the benefits of smoke-free living. Display it, or present it to someone who is quitting!
  
  
• Contact your state’s Quitline and ask for a supply of materials to distribute to interested members of your workplace on Great American Smokeout day.
  
  
• Make sure that tobacco treatment services are among the covered benefits for all employees by working with your employer and other local businesses as they negotiate with health insurance providers.

Women who smoke increase their risk for infertility, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion, and stillbirth. Pregnant women who smoke risk the health and lives of their unborn babies. Smoking during pregnancy is linked with a greater chance of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, infant deaths, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Up to 10% of infant deaths would be prevented if pregnant women did not smoke. If they stay smoke-free, their babies will have fewer chest colds and ear infections, fewer asthma attacks, be at reduced risk for SIDS, breathe easier, grow better, and be less likely to become smokers.

If you work with pregnant women, motivate them to quit for the health of their baby. Here are a few things you can do to help:

• Discuss the dangers of secondhand smoke during pregnancy in a company newsletter article and offer referrals to cessation programs.
  
  
• Work with local Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs to deliver and reinforce smoke-free messages among employees.
  
  
• If you work with pregnant women, urge them to establish smoke-free homes and vehicles.
  
  
• If you work with pregnant women or parents of young children, contact your local American Cancer Society office to learn about Make Yours a Fresh Start Family. The Society can train you to help young parents quit.
  
  
• Take the Smoke-Free Home Pledge at epa.gov. Encourage the parents in your place of work to give it a try.
  
  

The enactment of local smoke-free laws has been the number one success tool of the tobacco control movement, both in protecting the public from exposure to secondhand smoke and in changing society’s attitudes regarding tobacco use. These laws generally cover workplaces, public places, restaurants and bars.

The right of nonsmokers to be free from exposure to secondhand smoke is protected by both legislation and judicial rulings. There are federal, state and local laws protecting nonsmokers, but the strongest and best enforced are generally at the local level.

Communities across the nation have taken steps to protect nonsmokers from the disease and death caused by secondhand smoke. Over 1,700 US communities have enacted local smoke-free air ordinances, with dozens providing for smoke-free air in all enclosed workplaces, including restaurants and bars, according to the ANR Foundation.

Join the American Cancer Society Action Alert Network to help further anti-tobacco initiatives in your community. Together, we can apply enough pressure – through letters, emails, phone calls and visits – that we can convince lawmakers to enact tougher smoking laws in public places and worksites.

For more information, call 1-800-ACS-2345 or visit acscan.org.

Secondhand smoke contains over 4,000 substances, more than 40 of which are human carcinogens for which there is no safe level of exposure With each new discovery that secondhand smoke kills, the level of public awareness and lack of tolerance for public smoking has accelerated.

Each year, about 3,000 nonsmoking adults die of lung cancer as a result of breathing secondhand smoke. In 1999, the National Cancer Institute determined that secondhand smoke is responsible for the early deaths of up to 53,000 Americans annually.

Whether sitting in the nonsmoking section of a restaurant that allows smoking, or visiting a smoker’s apartment, each time a nonsmoker is exposed to secondhand smoke, their body immediately feels the effects.

People exposed to secondhand smoke greatly increase their risk of developing lung cancer, heart disease, asthma, bronchitis, ear infections, pneumonia, croup, and sore throats. Children are particularly susceptible to secondhand smoke. Infants exposed to secondhand smoke increase their chances of getting respiratory diseases, ear infections, asthma and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Between 7,500 and 15,000 infants in the US are hospitalized each year as a result of such diseases.

All of the death and disease caused by smoking and other tobacco use in this country places a huge emotional and economic burden on society. The number of people who prematurely die or suffer illness from tobacco use results in substantial health-related costs to businesses and our economy. From 1995-1999, adult male and female smokers lost an average of 13.2 and 14.5 years of life, respectively, due to smoking.

According to Cancer Facts & Figures 2004:

• Smoking caused approximately $157.7 billion in annual health-related economic costs, including adult mortality-related productivity costs, adult medical expenditures, and medical expenditures for newborns.
  
  
• Mortality-related productivity losses in the US amounted to $81.9 billion annually during 1995-1999, or $1,760 in lost productivity per adult smoker in 1999.
  
  
• Smoking-related medical costs totaled $75.5 billion in 1998, and accounted for 8 percent of personal health care medical expenditures. This translates to $1,623 in excess medical expenditures per adult smoker in 1999.
  
  
• Smoking-attributable costs for newborns were $366 million in 1996, or $704 per maternal smoker.
  
  
• For each pack of cigarettes sold in 1999, $3.45 was spent on medical care due to smoking, and $3.73 in productivity losses, for a total of $7.18 per pack.
  
  
• A recent review of the costs of treating smoking-attributable diseases in the US showed that they range from 6 to 8 percent of health expenditures.