Tobacco Suggestions

Promote quitting tobacco use, policy adoption, and offering cessation information and/or services within your community (school, worksite, or faith-based organization) by completing one or more of the following activities:

Adopt and enforce a smoke free public places local ordinance (call 803-530-6720 to see samples of successful ordinances that have been introduced in communities across the United States).
Make buildings 100 % smoke free (call 803-545-4463 for resources, supporting information, and sample policy language)
Ensure that each restaurant that applies for a business license receives a smoke free restaurant toolkit along with their license (call 803-530-6720 for smoke free restaurant toolkits) and pass out smoke free restaurant materials to all restaurants in your community with spare materials going to the Chamber of Commerce office.
Start a RAGE Against the Haze chapter in your Parks & Recreation office, school, or faith-based community (call 803-545-4466 for information on how to get started).
Provide interventions and incentives for quitting smoking by placing Quitline posters and stickers in conspicuous areas at your worksite, such as employee break rooms, restrooms, employee entrances and on telephones (call 803-545-4464 to request materials).
Offer a smoking cessation class during employees’ lunch hour on at least a semi-annual basis; utilize this opportunity to promote the toll-free Quit for Keeps program and its phone number 1-877-44U-QUIT.
Ensure that employee health insurance covers cessation pharmacology, including patches, gum, inhalers and/or medications for employees who want to quit smoking.
Measure the success of your program by counting the number of smokers who quit (for help evaluating programs, call (803) 545-4501).
Organize an event at your facility in conjunction with Kick Butts Day or World No Tobacco Day.
Design a bulletin board that advertises various smoking cessation opportunities in our community and placed it in a common area.
Increase awareness of M.E.S.S. (Mothers Eliminating Secondhand Smoke - a campaign that empowers women of faith to educate their faith-based organizations and surrounding communities about the dangers associated with secondhand smoke) by nominating your congregation’s First Lady to lead the implementation of an M.E.S.S. educational program to teach congregational members about the dangers of secondhand smoke (contact Hold Out the Lifeline: A Mission To Families for M.E.S.S. resources at 803-545-4467).
If you are a church, develop a “smoke free homes” and “smoke free vehicles” pledge drive, encouraging congregants to sign a Smoke Free Home Pledge; showcase families that pledge to have smoke free vehicles and smoke free homes (call 803-545-4463 for pledge kits).
Post “No Smoking” signs on all the doors inside the public building of your community, your place of worship, your school, or your worksite (call 803-545-4463 for free signs).
Designate all local government, school, or business-owned vehicles 100 percent tobacco free at all times.
If you are a school, complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the Youth Tobacco Survey if your school is selected by the Centers For Disease Control as a participant (call 803-545-4462 for further information).
If you are a school, change your current policy to prohibit smoking in the teacher’s lounge, if your school permits smoking. Make your school 100 percent smoke free (call 803-545-4467 for more information on tobacco free school policies).

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Tobacco Suggestions