Someone once said that there’s a little good and evil in us all. As much as ACSH condemns the NYC Health Department for overreaching in its anti-soda campaign, we must give it credit for an anti-smoking campaign that has reduced smoking deaths by 17 percent in the past eight years. The number of deaths fell from 8,700 in 2002 to 7,200 in 2009, and the number of smokers has fallen by a third, the health department reported yesterday.
The city raised cigarette taxes in 2002, banned smoking in bars in 2003, run graphic anti-smoking ads since 2006 and given away free nicotine patches and gum to 250,000 New Yorkers since 2003, helping 80,000 smokers to quit, according to health officials.
“They deserve a lot of credit,” admits Dr. Ross. “We don’t hesistate to jump on them when they’re wrong, but we also applaud them when they are effective. However, if you do the math on the patches and gum, you get a ‘success’ rate for quitting of about 5 percent per year. That, unfortunately, is the rate that all the studies show for the currently approved methods. Too bad no one at the DOH wants to try an effective quitting aid, like smokeless tobacco.”