Guthrie Joins American Cancer Society to Spotlight Great American Smokeout

November 16, 2022

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), approximately 34 million American adults still smoke cigarettes, and smoking remains the single largest preventable cause of death and illness in the world with an estimated 480,000 deaths every year.

Thursday, Nov. 17 marks the ACS’s Annual Great American Smokeout, a decades-old event aimed at setting people on the path toward quitting. Physicians throughout Guthrie’s 12-county footprint treat people every day who suffer from a variety of illnesses caused by tobacco use. Guthrie experts partnered with the American Cancer Society for a virtual news conference to motivate people to stop smoking, offering alarming stats, as well as ways to get help.

“By the time someone comes to me in the office for COPD because they’re symptomatic, they are either at the bottom end of the moderate severity range of COPD, or they’ve already crossed into the severe end,” said Dr. Boyd Hehn, Chief of Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine, The Guthrie Clinic. “So they’ve lost a tremendous amount of lung function and though our medication is better, medication doesn’t return anything to you.”

“We do recognize that quitting is not easy,” said Jamie Kane, Associate Director of Development, American Cancer Society, Northeast Region. “It very much takes time and an actual plan to quit smoking. which a lot of people don’t recognize the first or couple times they try it. Our line this year is, you don’t have to quit in one day, you start with one day.”

Smoking cessation resources:

  • 1-800-227-2345
  • 1-866-NY-QUITS
  • 1-800-QUIT NOW
  • 1-855-DÉJELO-YA (Spanish-language quit line)
  • Text QUIT to 47848