(Photo courtesy of © Can Stock Photo / rusak)(Photo courtesy of © Can Stock Photo / rusak)
Chatham

CKPHU Urging Smokers To Quit

May 31 is World No Tobacco Day and the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit wants smokers to know there's help to quit.

Health Educator Jeff Moco says tobacco is the number one preventable killer worldwide and kills 38,000 Canadians a year.

Moco says the number of smokers is going down, but not here in Chatham-Kent.

"Province-wide we're slowly seeing a decrease in our smoking rate.  Unfortunately in Chatham-Kent we kind of stalled and we're a little bit more than average.  We're around 23% smoking rate," says Moco.

People 19 to 30 have the highest smoking rate in Chatham-Kent at almost 30%.

Visit ckphu.com/quit for quitting information.

Moco says 70% of people want to quit over the next six months but something always gets in the way.

"Unfortunately the timing never seems to be right or something else always comes up and there's that one key motivating factor that needs to have people jump over to make a good quality quit attempt.  Unfortunately in the work that we see, it's usually a health scare," Moco says.

Moco says quitting is just a click away.

"Especially with young adults who have so many years of great life ahead, let's get some urgency here.  Chatham-Kent is so fortunate, we have so much free nicotine replacement therapy, lots of groups that people can join.  The options are endless," says Moco.

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