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11/20/2003 Archived Entry: "GREAT AMERICAN SMOKEOUT"

GREAT AMERICAN SMOKEOUT

The idea for the Great American Smokeout came from Arthur P. Mullaney, a Massachusetts resident who asked people to give up smoking for a day in 1971 and donate the money they would have spent on tobacco to a local high school. Then, in 1974, Lynn R. Smith, editor of the Monticello Times in Minnesota, spearheaded the state’s first D-Day, or Don’t Smoke Day.

The idea caught on, and on November 18, 1976, the California Division of the American Cancer Society successfully prompted nearly one million smokers to quit for the day. That California event marked the first Smokeout, and the Society took it nationwide in 1977.

Nicotine is as addictive as heroin or cocaine and it's a huge loadstone around the necks of three of my family members and lots of other people, particularly our young. They know they shouldn't smoke. They know you can die from smoking, die too early in life...and kill others that encounter their second-hand smoke.

And there are ways to kick the habit. Lots of us did kick it. It doesn't work to tell someone they shouldn't smoke. They already know that.