By JEFF BOMBEN
“The best way to stop smoking is to just stop — no ifs, ands or butts,” says author Edith Zittler.
This week, the Canadian Council for Tobacco Control (CCTC) is celebrating National Non-Smoking Week with the theme being, “Breaking up is hard to do.”
The CCTC was founded in 1974 by non-governmental organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society and the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
Bartek Kubat, an 18-year-old student at the St. Louis Adult Learning Centre and Continuing Educational Centre, was a smoker for over two years but decided to try quitting after a scary hospital experience. Kubat had asthma for a while but never had to use his puffer until one week when he had not one but three asthma attacks.
After the attacks, Kubat knew it was time for a change, so he cut down on his smoking and is on the right path to quitting.
Kubat is in full support of National Non-Smoking Week.
“This week is good to have because smoking is just bad in general. It does kill and maybe this week will let people have more knowledge of the risks involved with smoking,” Kubat said.
According to the Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey (CTUMS), 17 per cent of Canadians who are 15 years or older were smokers in 2010. That number dropped only two per cent over the past five years.
According to the survey, men are more likely to smoke than women.
According to CTUMS, the number of smokers in Canada has decreased over the past 10 years. The most recent survey compared the smoking population from 1999 to 2009. Over the 10-year span, almost two-million people stopped smoking.
However, almost five million people in Canada still smoke, including four million who are smoking on a daily basis.
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