CDC Reaches Out to LGBT People in Smoking Cessation Ads

The latest data from CDC shows that LGBT people smoke at rates 68% higher than the general population. With such high tobacco use rates within our community, you would think that there are efforts taking place across the country to help members of our community break the nicotine habit. Commonly cessation efforts do not reach out, or even speak to our communities which considering the tobacco use rates in our community is quite troubling. Every day we go to work we are striving to make a difference, helping our friends, family, and even strangers through our programming focused on reducing tobacco use within our community, and helping to counter the tobacco industrys practices as they are searching to recruit thousands of daily smokers to make up for the ones they (and we) have lost. I have never smoked but I have plenty of friends and family who have broke the nicotine habit and many more who are in the process or thinking about quitting.

I say all of this to celebrate CDC for taking steps to be more inclusive of their outreach methods to help all people break the nicotine habit. There is a new blog up today from Dr. Scout on HuffPost Gay Voices which we are thrilled to share: CDC Reaches Out to LGBT People in Smoking Cessation Ads. Click the link and make sure you share it on twitter, facebook, email etc. It’s about getting the word out there, and hopefully we all can help our friends, family, and loved ones take that next step in their quit journey.