According to a story from Newsday, the New York State Department of Health has reported a record-low smoking rate among residents, despite a slight rise nationally.
The story states that New York residents who said they smoked cigarettes decreased from 18.9 percent in 2007 to 16.8 percent in 2008.
At the same time, surveys from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have shown that the number of people who smoke nationally has increased from 19.8 percent in 2007 to 21 percent in 2008.
According to Patricia Bax, marketing coordinator for New York State Smokers’ Quitline, the decrease may have to do with the state’s strict policies.
“I think that … it probably changed by increasing the tax,” Bax said. “It forced people to make that decision between ‘Am I going to smoke?’ or ‘Am I going to pay my bills?’”
Bax added that New York state has a strong program with good funding to get people the help they need. According to Bax, the quitline will interview callers to determine their seriousness in quitting smoking and will then provide a free starter kit to help.
The kits are meant to last two weeks and include nicotine patches, gum and lozenges.
Thursday marked the annual Great American Smokeout Challenge, where the American Cancer Society (ACS) challenges smokers from across the nation to quit for one day. For the event, Binghamton University’s Tobacco Awareness and Reduction club (TAR) tabled in the New University Union and brought two speakers from the Broome County Health Department to lecture on the dangers of smoking.
“We believe if they can do it [quit] for the day, they can do it for good,” said sophomore Amanda Pachomski, founder and president of TAR at BU.
Pachomski added that New York was very proactive in its legislation against smoking.
“SUNY [at] Buffalo is already smoke-free as of this fall,” said Pachomski. “People think I want the entire campus [BU] to be smoke-free, but i don’t … I just want it to be more fair [for non-smokers].”
According to Bax, there is a high prevalence of smoking in college and the most effective fix is policy change.
Nicodemo Panetta, a sophomore engineering major, said that being in college has actually decreased the number of cigarettes he smokes because he is around fewer smokers.
“When I came to Binghamton, smoking got harder and harder to keep up,” Panetta said. “It really becomes like a roller coaster; you hang out with smokers, you start smoking more frequently, then you start hanging out with others who don’t smoke and you smoke less and less.”