The campaign is called “Don't Be Silent”

We have written quite a bit about how the city of New York leads the way in initiatives for smoking cessation. The latest idea to come from the Department of Health is one in which doctors will be encouraged to hassle and “be a pain in the butt” to smokers.

The idea is that when patients go and see a doctor very often the doctors do not make much of a fuss about the fact that their patients smoke. The new campaign will encourage doctors to speak out. The campaign which is called “Don't Be Silent” will have pictures of doctors with their mouths appearing to look as if they have been stitched up. The advertisements for this campaign will be printed in places which doctors will see them such as medical journals, health clinics and all mainstream newspapers.

The city of New York will be spending over one and a quarter million dollars to finance this campaign and the Health Commissioner for the state Dr Richard Daines said that he felt this campaign would have a big impact. According to New York state figures just under 90 percent of doctors ask their patients if they smoke, around ¾ of doctors actually advise their patients that they should quit and 45 percent actually gave smoking cessation advice and assistance.

This new campaign should make sure that all doctors at all times clearly advise their patients to quit smoking and get them help to do so. Other research that we have seen at Ukmedix News shows that doctors can have a big effect on the decision to quit smoking. In all the state of New York will be spending $85 million this year in smoking cessation initiatives.

The state has also applied to the Food & Drug Administration to allow smoking cessation nicotine replacement products to be sold alongside cigarettes all over the state. They also want to allow single doses of nicotine replacement therapies to be sold with the cigarettes.The idea being that if somebody is desperate for a cigarette they may not want to buy a two week course of nicotine replacement but would more happily just have a single day dose on the spot.