Smokers besiege hot line

By Ed Kemmick of Montana Lee Newspapers - 02/08/2005

Call to quit The state's toll-free tobacco quit line, (866) 485-7848, is answered live from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday; and 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

BILLINGS — In an average month, Montana's toll-free tobacco quit line fields about 380 calls. Last month, after a dollar-a-pack cigarette tax increase went into effect on Jan. 1, the line was flooded with 3,483 calls.

‘‘It's been phenomenal,'' said Georgiana Gulden of the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program. ‘‘We fully expected the numbers to go up. We weren't expecting quite that number, though.'' The quit line was started last May, so Gulden said she didn't know how much of the increase in calls was attributable to people who made New Year's resolutions to quit smoking. Although that might have had something to do with it, she said, there is also solid research showing that increases in tobacco taxes are ‘‘a great impetus for people to quit.'' In November, Montana voters approved an initiative that raised the state tax on cigarettes by $1 a pack, to $1.70, the fourth-highest state tax in the nation. The increased tax is expected to produce new revenues of $35 million to $40 million a year, which will go to health insurance programs, Medicaid services, veterans' nursing homes and the state general fund.

Gulden said surveys have shown that 46 percent of smokers in Montana say they would like to quit, so a hefty increase in the cost of smoking will help push some of those people into doing so. As an added inducement, quit-line callers are offered up to six weeks' worth of nicotine replacement therapy — nicotine patches or gum — if they also agree to sign up for telephone counseling sessions.

On average, Gulden said, 65 percent of the people who call the quit line sign up for counseling, and of those, 77 percent receive nicotine patches or gum. The quit line is run by the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver through a contract with the state of Montana.

There is other, anecdotal, evidence of people quitting as a result of the increased tobacco tax.

— Ed Kemmick writes for The Billings Gazette.