Give workers tools to kick habit

My story is personal. Thanksgiving night 1997 changed my life forever. I lost my dad to a five-year battle with lung cancer.

He smoked most of his life, always telling me, “back then, everyone smoked, and it was the thing to do.” He then developed an affinity for smoking to the point where he puffed on cigarettes while on oxygen — and on hospice. Plain and simple, he was addicted.

Don’t mistake this for anything but what it was — a bad habit that turned into a serious problem. My dad was a great pharmacist. And a great father. Unfortunately, he was addicted to something that eventually cut his life short.

According to the Department of Community Health, there are more than 10,000 tobacco-related deaths in Georgia every year. The “2009 Georgia Data Summary” reports that 1.4 million adults in Georgia smoke and among adult smokers age 35 or older, cancer accounts for 43 percent of all deaths because of smoking.

I followed in my Dad’s footsteps in one way — I became a pharmacist. I take my profession very seriously and have an underlying passion for smoking cessation — and I take it one person at a time.

Every day I witness the struggle where individuals weigh the choice of buying cigarettes versus spending money on the therapy or counseling needed to help them quit. I do my very best to provide counsel to these individuals and direct them to appropriate resources to help them quit. And I offer cessation products at cost to my customers.

The more people I can help stop smoking and make a positive lifestyle change, the healthier our entire community will be. Georgia did well to pass smoke-free laws, but that is just the beginning.

We need our employers to take this seriously and help employees kick the habit. I applaud Forsyth County for the incredible benefit it offers to assist employees in quitting — and staying quit. Companies that follow the CDC recommendations on cessation see more people quit successfully, create healthier work environments and ultimately cut long-term health expenditures.

Currently, Georgia is one of only a few states across the country that does not provide comprehensive smoking cessation coverage or incentives to its employees, yet the DCH reports that tobacco use costs the state $5 billion a year.

Other states have seen positive health impact of offering cessation programs. Researchers from the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program found that up to 38 percent fewer MassHealth cessation benefit users were hospitalized for heart attacks in the first year after using the benefit, and 17 percent fewer benefit users visited the emergency room for asthma symptoms in the first year after using the benefit.

Researchers also found that there were 17 percent fewer claims for adverse maternal birth complications since the benefit was implemented.

I challenge health plans and employers, like the state of Georgia, to step up and help their members and employees quit smoking. Employers have everything to gain — including the financial impact of better productivity and less tobacco-related health expenditures.