Smoking has been found to harm nearly every bodily organ and organ system in the body and diminishes a person’s overall health.

Tobacco smoke contains a deadly mix of more than 7,000 chemicals; hundreds are harmful, and about 70 can cause cancer.

Smoking is a leading cause of cancer and death from cancer. It causes cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, liver, pancreas, stomach, cervix, colon, and rectum, as well as acute myeloid leukemia.

Smoking causes heart disease, stroke, aortic aneurysm, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, age-related macular degeneration, and cataracts, and worsens asthma symptoms in adults. Smokers are at higher risk of developing pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other airway infections. In addition, smoking causes inflammation and impairs immune function.

Quitting tobacco use is hard and it can take many attempts to quit. People who stop smoking greatly reduce their risk for disease and early death.

ASPIRE Tobacco Recovery Program Is Here To Help

During this time of social distancing, ASPIRE Tobacco Recovery Program is available to help people break free from addiction and move toward a healthier life via virtual meetings. Franciscan Health’s ASPIRE Tobacco Treatment Specialist will create an individualized quit plan specifically for you. Support Group meets virtually every Wednesday. Click here for details.

There is Help

The Indiana Tobacco Quitline is a free phone-based counseling service that helps Indiana residents quit tobacco.

Services include:

• One on one coaching for tobacco users who have decided to quit
• Resources for healthcare providers who want to improve patient outcomes
• Best practices for employers who want to implement smoke-free policies
• Support for family and friends who want to help loved ones stop smoking
• Tools for tobacco control partners to complement their current programs

Services are available to you 7 days-a-week in more than 170 languages.
A trained quit coach will work with you and provide solutions tailored to your needs.

For support information call today at 1-800-QUIT-NOW (800-784-8669).

You can go online www.QuitNowIndiana.com for more information and to learn about Web Coach® and Text2Quit® services.

Here’s the truth: Quitting nicotine isn’t easy, but it can be done with the right support. We know because we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people stop using tobacco through proven-effective treatments and innovative and interactive tools. So if you or a loved one is ready to quit, there’s no better time than now.

​​BecomeAnEX^®

BecomeAnEX is a free, digital quit-smoking plan and online community of thousands of smokers and ex-smokers developed by Truth Initiative in collaboration with Mayo Clinic. It has helped more than 800,000 people develop the skills and confidence to successfully quit. Research has shown that following the BecomeAnEX quit plan quadruples a tobacco user’s chance of quitting.

​​The EX^® Program

The EX Program expands on BecomeAnEX to provide an enterprise-level tobacco cessation program designed for employers and health plans. The EX Program has an active social network of thousands of smokers and ex-smokers and delivers proven quit-smoking treatment via interactive quitting tools and video, live chat, text message, email, and quit medication. It also includes personalized, digital coaching and medication support from tobacco treatment specialists at the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center and Truth Initiative. Clients receive quarterly program performance reports, promotional materials, a dedicated client success manager, and more.

This is Quitting

The youth e-cigarette use epidemic created an urgent need for resources to help young people quit vaping. We filled that need by developing a first-of-its-kind program called This is Quitting. The free quit-vaping and quit-smoking mobile program is one of the few resources available designed specifically for teens and young adults. Schools, youth-serving organizations and state and local governments have partnered with This is Quitting to customize it for their unique populations.

We are creating the first tobacco-free generation. This is how we’re doing.

Get the latest facts and analyses on the most important issues in tobacco and substance use.