No Smoking Day 2010
What’s more, over one million other would-be quitters will be joining you in the attempt!
Over the past few years more and more people have been kicking the deadly habit for good and this trend is due in no small part to No Smoking Day.
Three out of four smokers want to give it up, but it is a salutary fact that over half of all long term smokers will die as a result of their habit, whilst smoking remaining the UK’s most pressing health issue.
No Smoking Day was inaugurated 25 years ago, appropriately enough on Ash Wednesday; it has been taking place annually ever since on the second Wednesday in March – which in 2010 is the 10th March.
Part of No Smoking Day’s success is due to the fact that it works throughout the year in partnership with other organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors, and undertakes extensive ground research, liaising with smokers to discover the key factors that trigger an attempt to quit.
Run by the eponymous UK charity of four full-time staff and assisted by health-related governmental and voluntary sector organisations, the campaign targets smokers in novel and innovative ways. Its aim is to involve as many people as possible to encourage and assist smokers who want to give up, and to direct them to sources of help and advice.
Every year more than a million smokers use No Smoking Day as the launch pad for their attempt to stop smoking, and the movement has become the UK’s foremost public health event with huge media coverage, making Britain a world leader in promoting smoking cessation.
As well as encouraging local and group events from the website www.nosmokingday.org.uk
A highly successful award-winning campaign tailored towards the Armed forces called The Military No Smoking Day, runs alongside the event with plans afoot to extend the initiative into HM prisons.
National No Smoking Day
No Smoking Day’s website gives suggestions of ways in which organisation or individuals can organise their own No Smoking Day Event, with ideas surrounding the theme; for example, a tug of war between smokers and non-smokers using a big chain, stalls covered in chains, smoking challenges or breathe-ins with CO monitors.
And there’s plenty of support available for the individual quitters too, with an interactive blog, maps of where to get advice locally, and information about patches, gum, Champix or other aids.
In 2009 a total of 900,000 people quit on No Smoking Day. This year looks to be even rosier – and so will you, if you give up smoking!