Smoking one pack of cigarettes a day,
Takes from your life a few years away!

Cigarette smoking is a nusiance,
Give up smoking - with no repentance!

Do not let tobacco destroy YOU,
But let tobacco be destroyed BY YOU!

Winners quit smoking,
And enjoy a healthy living!

When we can’t give the next generation,
A world free of pollution!

Lets’ tell them we do care,
And give them atleast homes with fresh air!

Shachi Saluja
DLDAV Model School
Pitampura
Delhi, India

The very important aspect while quit smoking for smoking that most of the people don’t know that how to quit smoking.. These are some ways…

At this time the most effective methods for quitting is a combination of nicotine replacement products and the antidepressant drug bupropion bolstered by counselling. After a year only about 4% of smokers who quit without any outside help succeed. The primary obstacle in trying to quit alone is making the behavioural changes necessary to eliminate the habits associated with smoking. Excellent books, tapes, and manuals are available and are strongly recommended to help people who want to quit without other assistance.

1. Nicotine replacement

Nicotine replacement products provide low doses of nicotine that do not contain the contaminants found in smoke. They are proving to be twice as helpful as other standard quitting methods. Replacement products include nicotine patches, gums, nasal sprays, and inhalers. Side effects of any nicotine replacement product may include headaches, nausea, and other gastrointestinal problems. People often experience sleeplessness in the first few days, particularly with the patch, but the insomnia usually passes. Patients using very high doses are more likely to experience symptoms, and reducing the dose can prevent them. Certain individuals like people with heart disease, pregnant women, small children may need to avoid nicotine replacement products.

Nicotine patches: Nicotine patches, or transdermal nicotine, can be an effective way to quit smoking. The quit rate for patch users is around 20% after six months. Nicotine patches are available over the counter, but it is best to consult a doctor before using them, particularly people with any medical problems.

Nicotine gum: Nicotine gum (Nicorette), available over the counter, has also been effective for a number of people. Some prefer it to the patch because they can control the nicotine dosage and chewing satisfies the oral urge. Long-term dependence may be a problem with this method.

Nicotine inhaler: The nicotine inhaler resembles a plastic cigarette holder. It comes with a number of nicotine cartridges which are inserted into the inhaler. It has some specific advantages over other slower nicotine replacement products:

Nicotine nasal spray: The nasal spray satisfies immediate cravings by providing doses of nicotine rapidly, and thus may play a useful role in conjunction with slower acting nicotine replacement therapies.

Nicotine tablet: A nicotine tablet that is held under the tongue is also very useful.

2. Alternative and ther Methods for Quitting

Scheduled reduction: One study showed that people who used a systematic withdrawal schedule were twice as likely to quit as those who went cold turkey. The procedure involves the following steps:

* Divide the number of minutes per day awake by the number of daily cigarettes; the result is the minute-long wait between smokes.
* Set up a schedule with time intervals based on this result and using a timer, smoke only at those intervals; if the “cigarette appointment” is missed by more than five minutes, the smoker must skip that cigarette.
* The following week, one-third fewer cigarettes are used and the smoking time is recalculated based on the lower number.
* During the third week the count is again reduced by a third, and the smoker quits in the fourth week.

Change daily habits:

* Change the daily schedule as much as possible. Eat at different times or eat many small meals instead of three large ones, sit in a different chair, rearrange the furniture.
* Find other ways to close a meal. Play a tape or CD, eat a piece of fruit, get up and make a phone call, or take a walk (a good distraction that burns calories as well).
* Substitute oral habits (eat celery, chew sugarless gum, suck on a cinnamon stick.) Go to public places and restaurants where smoking is prohibited or restricted.
* Set short-term quitting goals and reward yourself when they are met, or every day put the money normally spent on cigarettes in a jar and buy something pleasurable at the end of a predetermined period of time.
* Find activities that focus the hands and mind but are not taxing or fattening: computer games, solitaire, knitting, sewing, whittling, crossword puzzles.
* Avoid heavy drinking of alcohol, caffeine, or other stimulants or mood altering substances.

Here are a few slogans:

*  Tobacco thrills but kills.

*  Tobacco free life is deplete of strife.

*  Give up smoking  embrace healthy living.

*  Tobacco and its wrath robs one of health.

*  Tobacco - a social menance  with no befitting penance.

Best Wishes,

Shachi Saluja
D.L.D.A.V.Model School
Delhi
India

Hello all! I am Evandro Alves Barbosa Filho, from Recife city, in Pernambuco state, northeast Brazil. I am very happy in had been invited to participate in this terrific Conference! I can´t wait to meet you all soon and can be able to share experiences and plan an agenda for youth advocacy around the world. As were asked, I am publishing my profile in tobacco control advocacy and awareness. Recife is a city with more than 1,5 million of inhabitants situated in northeast Brazil. I have being working with health promotion trough a continuous health education process towards the creation and implementation of Smoke - Free Workplaces; civil society mobilization towards disclosure of the tobacco industry’s strategies; elaboration of projects, scientific papers to national and international conferences in Tobacco Control and Social Work field and educative material in the Recife’s Tobacco Control Policy Coordination of the Health Secretariat. I also have been interviewed by local media. Actually, I am working in order to improve social control for this policy involving the Municipal Health Council and organized civil society. We developed in October of 2008 a formation cycle for the Council members that had as objective to strengthen the tobacco control actions in the city, through social oversight; to promote ethical, social, political, economic and cultural formation about the tobacco control issue and to stimulate tobacco control advocacy. I am also working to implement the Latin America Youth Net – LA RED, in which I represent Brazil, by starting from my city, first establishing partnership with the Universities’ Student’s Movement. Also I intend to improve the Recife’s Social Civil Mobilization Forum.

Over 50 p.c. of pre-university Bangalore students are smokers - The HinduFebruary 18, 2009Nagesh PabhuRules to discourage tobacco use have had no impact on youth -At least 18 colleges had tobacco selling points-Many students influenced by peer pressureThe findings of a study, conducted by the Institute of Public Health (IPH), Bangalore, this year, shows that over 50 per cent of pre-university (PU) students pursuing courses in arts and humanities are smokers.The rules and advertisements to discourage the use of tobacco products by the youth have had no impact on students in Bangalore.The study revealed that 58.9 per cent of students of arts and humanities, followed by 30.6 per cent and 10.6 per cent students of science and commerce streams, respectively, use tobacco products.The study was conducted in two stages in Bangalore’s 19 PU colleges on 1,087 students of first year PU (53 per cent) and second year PU (47 per cent). At least 18 colleges had one or more tobacco selling points within 100 yards of their campus. The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2005 prohibits sale of tobacco products within 100 yards of any educational institution. As much as 55.8 per cent of students said that peer pressure had influenced them to use tobacco products.More than 30 per cent said their teachers were smokers, while 31.74 per cent said that at least one parent used tobacco products. Cinema influence as much as 18 per cent felt the need to smoke or consume tobacco when they saw film stars smoking or chewing gutka in films, IPH’s Upendra Bhojani, who conducted the study under the guidance of the Institute for Social and Economic Change, told The Hindu.
Source: The Hindu