New City Advertising Campaign Promotes Free Nicotine Patches

By Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 17, 2008

A 58-year-old Bronx amputee who once smoked two packs of cigarettes a day is the face of the city health department's new anti-tobacco advertisements.

The ads, to air through May 1, promote the city's 16-day "giveaway" of free nicotine patches and gum. "Quitting smoking is the single most important thing you can do to improve your health," the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Frieden, said yesterday at a news conference at the city's 311 headquarters in Manhattan.

About 1 million city residents smoke cigarettes, but the rate has dropped to 17% from 22% since 2002, health officials said. Officials said a smoking ban in restaurants and bars and aggressive anti-tobacco advertisements have encouraged 250,000 New Yorkers to quit smoking since 2002. This month, the state increased the sales tax on cigarettes by $1.25. "These are synergistic interventions," Dr. Frieden said.

The city's latest advertisement features a former smoker named Marie, who has had about 20 surgeries since 1993 to remove pieces of her fingers, toes, and the lower part of her left leg due to a smoking-related illness that restricts blood flow.

Marie, who declined to give her last name, said she began smoking at 17 because "every TV commercial was about smoking and how good you looked doing it." She said she smoked until two years ago, despite warnings from doctors. "They kept cutting off parts of my body and I still didn't listen to them," she said.