University prepares smoking cessation resources for students and faculty

As the upcoming smoking ban rests on smokers’ minds, the University prepares to release its resource plans to help those who want to quit smoking. The ban will take effect on Jan. 1, 2014.
According to the Illinois Tobacco Survey conducted in late April 2012, 27 percent of students and 31 percent of faculty want to quit smoking. McKinley Health Center will offer programs geared toward students, while the UI Wellness Center will focus on helping faculty.

“We are very aware that there are people who don’t want to quit smoking, but they want to comply with the rules,” said Michele Guerra, director of UI Wellness Center. “We want to help them be able to get through their day without feeling anxiety because they cannot nourish their craving. We are trying to offer a menu of services to cater to everyone.” Cigaronne cigarettes.
Both offices are waiting on final approval from the chancellor’s office on official cessation programs, Guerra said. However, both centers have begun to roll out programs to aid smokers before the ban is in place.
“It’s very personal, and different people quit in different ways, so we want to steer people in the right way,” Guerra said. “For example, with behavior, some may smoke to help them relieve stress. So, we look into stress management.”
Gabriella Booker, freshman in LAS, never considered quitting smoking until she heard news of the ban.
“I’m excited for the ban because I need to quit. I feel that it would benefit me and others in the long run,” Booker said. “It’ll be much easier than to have to constantly go off campus just to find a place to smoke.”
But Booker said she does not plan to use the resources at McKinley.
“When I quit, I would just cut off on my own,” Booker said. “I wouldn’t want resources, but it’s interesting to know that they are offering them.”
Several group cessation sessions are available, and McKinley offers one-on-one counseling with trained facilitator Beth Frasca. One of the most publicized options is the Illinois Tobacco Quitline, a telephone counseling program with nicotine replacement therapy. Sessions can be scheduled to a person’s convenience. The quitline is offered in over 200 languages, which Guerra said is great for the University’s diverse demographic.
Almost 69 percent of students voted to eliminate smoking on campus in a November 2011 referendum. For those who voted against the ban, about 30 percent of student smokers (9 percent of total number of students who voted) and about 33 percent of employee smokers (almost 7 percent of total number of employees who voted), said they are less likely to stay at the University once the ban is set in place.
Keith Berman, junior in LAS, does not plan to quit smoking once the ban is passed and finds the ban to be a “slight abuse of power.”
“I don’t think it’ll make a big change in my smoking habits because I’m not sure how they are going to enforce it. I also live right near the edge of campus, so I could always just walk across the street,” he said. “While I understand smoking regulations in dorms and buildings for safety purposes, I don’t necessarily agree with the ban.”
The University received a $50,000 “We Choose Health” grant, which is a part of a multi-year effort to encourage and support tobacco prevention in Illinois communities. The Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department organized the Champaign County coalition that applied for the grant.
Grant money was used toward implementing the policy. This included hiring Sarah Sommer, a graduate assistant at the Wellness Center, as a smoke-free campus assistant to provide administrative and organizational support to create a smoke-free campus over the next year.
According to the recommendation report from the Smoke-Free Ad Hoc Committee, international students will receive fair warning of the smoke-free policy by recruiters in their home countries. After arriving on campus, groups such as the Peer Health Advocates, Student Health Services as well as University Housing and Dining Services will assist International Student and Scholar Services in bringing awareness to programs that may provide free nicotine patches, gum and counseling sessions.
As of July 2013, 1,178 campuses nationwide have smoke-free campuses, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. These campuses may have policies that have been enacted but are not yet in effect. Including the University, the state of Illinois currently has 14 smoke-free campuses, 8 of which are completely tobacco-free.

Smoking a tough addiction to quit

Thursday is the Great American Smokeout, a day recognized by the American Cancer Society as a chance to reinforce how vitally important it is for those who smoke to quit, set a date to quit, or at least contemplate quitting. No one can argue that quitting smoking is hard. There are those who work in the addictions field who say that nicotine can be more addictive than heroin, making it harder for some people to stop smoking cigarettes than it is to quit using heroin. That speaks volumes about how difficult it truly is to quit smoking. Nicotine is only one of about 4,000 chemicals found in cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke, but it is the major one responsible for the addictive quality of smoking. The cigarette itself is probably the fastest and most efficient way to deliver a drug to the brain besides intravenous injection. The brain receives the highest level of nicotine within 10 seconds of the first inhalation but the effect only lasts a few minutes, which causes the smoker to continue inhaling in order to maintain the drug’s pleasurable effects and prevent withdrawal. That’s why the more one smokes, the more one smokes.

 An addiction is defined as compulsive drug-seeking and use, even in the face of negative health consequences. It is well documented that most smokers know it is harmful and many would like to quit, but the addiction is very strong. Nicotine stimulates a part of the brain that is responsible for pleasurable feelings, just like other drugs that are abused. No wonder so many smokers find it so hard to quit. It feels good! The immediate effects of nicotine withdrawal, on the other hand, feel terrible. Irritability, craving, trouble thinking and paying attention, sleep disturbances, and increased appetite can begin within a few hours of the last cigarette — potentially sending a wanna-be-ex-smoker right back to the habit. These symptoms can be strong for a few days before they begin to decrease in the following days, weeks and months. The negative health effects of smoking are staggering. Cigarette smoking kills more U.S. citizens a year than alcohol, cocaine, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire and AIDS combined. It’s not just lung cancer, either. “Smoking harms every organ in the body, causing many diseases and compromising smokers’ health in general,” according to a research report by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Here’s a short list: Cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, cervix, kidney, ureter and bladder. The list also includes chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart disease, stroke, heart attack, blood vessel disease, and aneurysm (ballooning and possible bursting of a blood vessel). Not so short, is it? Dunhill cigarettes.

 Having said all that, it is possible for anyone to quit, no matter how much or for how long one has been smoking. There are multiple kinds of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in the form of patches, gum, lozenges and inhalers. If a smoker who has tried quitting using one of these products has not been successful in the past, another form of NRT might work. Several oral medications are available that have been proven to help a smoker become a non-smoker. These meds are available by prescription only, so a phone call or visit to one’s health care provider is required and it would make their day. Research is showing that NRT or medication combined with behavior modification learned either in a class setting or one-on-one, is the most successful recipe to quit smoking. The NRT or medication takes care of the physical craving for nicotine. Behavior education/modification helps one recognize situations where there is a high-risk for relapse and fosters development of coping strategies, stress management techniques and increases social support. The New York State Smoker’s Quitline is a useful resource for those who want to quit or are even thinking about quitting. It’s free, staffed by trained personnel, and some people are eligible for free NRT. Chewing tobacco is not a safe alternative to smoking. E-cigarettes are not yet tested by the FDA so no one really knows what the vapor contains besides nicotine. It is hard to deem something like that safe until testing has been carried out.

The day after the Great American Smokeout

The folks with the American Cancer Society spent Thursday promoting the 38th annual Great American Smokeout. It’s the one day, of the year, the group targets tobacco user to give up the habit. But what happens one day later? Friday is the day after the Great American Smokeout. Juliana Frederick, with the West Virginia American Cancer Society, said Friday is just as important as the day before. That’s because users begin to preparing for the long haul.

“They have to come up with a quit plan to stop smoking!” Those first few days tend to be the most difficult according to Frederick.
She stressed her office works year round on policies and programs to help people stop using tobacco. They’re currently working with Congress. U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller has co-sponsored a bill to raise the federal tobacco tax to $1.95 a pack.
“The most effective way to get people to quit using tobacco products is to increase the tax on them,” explained Frederick.
She said getting folks to quit is a matter of life and death. Currently 19 percent of Americans use some type of tobacco product. The number is higher here in West Virginia where 25 percent of men and 23 percent of women use tobacco. West Virginia is second only to Kentucky when it comes to the number of smokers. Last year 3,800 West Virginians died from complications of tobacco use.
Frederick stressed the Great American Smokeout gives people a date to start but it’s what happens in the days, weeks and months after that really counts.