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One Bright Spot: Helping More Smokers Quit
Quitting at any time gives your body a chance to heal the damage caused by smoking. It’s never too late to quit, but the sooner you do it, the better.
Expanding access to tobacco cessation was the only potential bright spot in state tobacco control efforts for 2011. Missouri, which overall has done little to reduce tobacco use, dramatically increased access by expanding its almost-comprehensive cessation coverage benefit for pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid to all of its Medicaid recipients.
Tennessee and Connecticut also announced an expansion of its cessation coverage from only pregnant women to all Medicaid recipients. Connecticut’s new cessation benefit covers all seven recommended cessation medications and individual cessation counseling with few barriers to accessing the coverage. Tennessee’s new benefit also covers all seven recommended cessation medications, but other details of specific treatment coverage were unavailable when this report went to press. Delaware and New York Medicaid programs also expanded coverage of cessation counseling to all recipients in 2011. Despite this good news, as of January 1, 2012, no state receives A’s for offering comprehensive cessation benefits to its Medicaid recipients, state employees and through quitlines. In addition, 32 states and the District of Columbia fail to adequately help their most vulnerable smokers quit.
New graphic warning labels are required to appear on all cigarette packs starting in the fall of 2012 and, at the urging of the American Lung Association and our partners, currently include the nationwide quitline number, 1 800 QUIT NOW. This will give smokers who want to quit as a result of seeing these warning labels the help they need to do so. In June of 2011, when the federal government revealed the new warning labels to the media and public, there was a dramatic increase in the number of calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW. The American Lung Association has advocated for the federal government and states to partner to ensure quitlines have sufficient resources to handle the anticipated increase in calls once these labels begin to appear on cigarette packs.
Ohio and Washington – which once had nationally recognized tobacco prevention and cessation programs – severely cut back funding for their state quitlines. Ohio’s quitline now only serves pregnant women, and, at press time, Washington’s quitline was only serving Medicaid recipients and actually turning away other smokers who were calling to get help. This will leave both states ill-prepared to help their smokers quit when the graphic warning labels are introduced – potentially leaving thousands of smokers who want to quit with no resources to do so.
