Demand Overwhelms State’s

Antismoking Program

HARTFORD — An antismoking effort by the state this summer has worked too well for its own good.

The state began offering smokers up to two months of free nicotine patches and gum in July to help them kick the habit. But due to huge demand, supplies are gone and Connecticut’s antismoking hot line is running out of money.

“We’re really victims of our own success,” said Bill Gerrish, spokesman for the state Department of Public Health. “Right now, we have about a month or so left that we can run the Connecticut Quitline.”

Tobacco users who dial the Quitline at 866-END-HABIT, which takes calls from 8 am to midnight, have been able to receive free counseling for several years. With the promise of free patches and gum added this summer, calls to the hot line increased from 50 a week to more than 3,300, Mr Gerrish said.

That cut deeply into the project’s budget, he said.

“From a public health perspective, that’s great. We want smokers to take advantage of this. But it led to a projected shortfall,” Mr Gerrish said.

To preserve the funding for the telephone counseling, state health officials suspended the nicotine replacement therapy in August, he said.

The Public Health Department is working with state budget officials to find alternate funding for the phone counseling, Mr Gerrish said.

Governor M Jodi Rell announced in July that Quitline would begin providing free nicotine replacement therapy supplies to callers who registered for cessation services. The program was funded with $1.9 million from the landmark 1998 national tobacco settlement and a $500,000 federal grant.

Officials had hoped to keep the upgraded Quitline going until the current fiscal year ends next summer, Mr Gerrish said.

“It really lasted for a month,” he said.

If the additional money cannot be found, the worst-case scenario is that smokers would have to use a national antismoking hot line, Gerrish said.

James Pisciotta, chief executive officer of the Southwest Connecticut Mental Health System, said the state hot line’s troubles show that Connecticut needs to spend more money from the tobacco settlement on smoking cessation programs.

The settlement between 46 states and major tobacco companies requires the companies to pay the states $206 billion over 25 years to end lawsuits over the public costs of treating ill smokers. But states have been free to use the money for debt reduction, construction projects, and other needs.

Connecticut has received nearly $997 million from the tobacco settlement so far and has put nearly all of it, $944 million, into the general fund for other uses, Mr Gerrish said.

The national Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids this year ranked Connecticut 36th out of the 50 states in funding tobacco prevention.