Gov. Beshear Announces Kentucky Joins Innovative National Effort to Help Smokers Quit

Press Release

Partnership Will Support State Resources to Help Smokers BECOME AN EX®

Gov. Steve Beshear announced today that Kentucky is joining forces with an innovative national effort to curb smoking by providing smokers with resources specifically designed to help those struggling with quitting the habit.

Kentucky will become a member of the National Alliance for Tobacco Cessation (NATC), a public health coalition of national organizations and state health agencies that sponsors the EX® campaign. The Kentucky Tobacco Cessation Program in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) hopes to reduce the number of adult smokers by linking Kentuckians with the EX campaign's online and informational resources.

"Kentucky has recently taken significant steps to help reduce state smoking rates," Gov. Beshear said. "We are delighted to have joined a number of organizations in several states and at the national level in this timely effort to focus on reducing smoking rates in Kentucky and across the country. The EX program will give the residents of Kentucky the free tools they need to re-learn their life without cigarettes and will ultimately extend and save lives. Kentucky is proud to join this groundbreaking initiative during its early stages."

With the latest research estimating that nearly six million people will lose their lives to tobacco next year, the NATC has created a campaign that will provide direct assistance to help the 43 million Americans who smoke--including more than 807,000 Kentuckians--to finally quit.

EX assists smokers in changing the way they feel about the process of quitting, guiding them to valuable resources, such as the Kentucky Quit Line at 1-800 (QUIT-NOW) or online community at www.BecomeAnEX.org. Such tools help provide the accountability and support needed for a successful quit attempt.

This new public education effort will encourage the 25 percent of Kentucky adults who smoke to approach quitting smoking as "re-learning life without cigarettes." EX provides smokers with information that can help them prepare for and guide a quit attempt by:

1. "Re-learning" their thinking on the behavioral aspects of smoking and how different smoking triggers can be overcome with practice and preparation;

2. "Re-learning" their knowledge of addiction and how medications can increase their chances for quitting success; and

3. "Re-learning" their ideas of how support from friends and family members can play a critical role in quitting.

"It is a historic day when one of the nation's top tobacco producing states, with extremely high smoking rates, joins the national effort to help smokers quit," said Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH, president and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation®. "Most smokers underestimate how powerful tobacco addiction can be. The approach provided by EX changes that equation by showing them how they can quit--namely by combining coaching, pharmacotherapy and social support, so that smokers have the support they need at the times when they're most likely to crave a cigarette and smoke."

Nationally, EX will continue to educate smokers through advertisements on television, radio and online and through events. Because social support is so important, EX offers a state-of-the-art Web site (www.BecomeAnEX.org) as a convening point for smokers who want to quit and share their successes and challenges in the difficult quit process. Since March 2008, when the national program debuted, over one million people have visited the site, and more than 14,000 smokers have joined the online community, forming nearly 300 customized support groups.

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