American Cancer Society Encourages Smokers to Quit Today

In an effort to get smokers to kick their habit, today marks the annual Great American Smokeout. The Great Lakes division of the American Cancer Society is encouraging all smokers to quit smoking for one day.

The goal is to set this date so that smokers become smoke free for good. Tobacco kills around 480,000 Americans a year.

Communications manager, Amanda Bosherz said smoking usually starts at a young age.

“Typically people start smoking when they are children under the age of 18 or young adults. At that point when you’re a teenager you don’t typically worry about ramifications of those kinds of decisions for the rest of your life, so by the time you are at a point where you want to quit or you don’t care about looking cool anymore, or those kinds of things… You are already addicted,” Bosherz said.

Statistics show that smokers usually don’t quit smoking the first try. Bosherz wants people to know that’s ok. There are tools and resources that you can use for help.

If you would like more information about the Great Smokeout log onto the American Cancer Society website at www.cancer.org.