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Recommendations for reducing tobacco use

Tobacco users can:

 

Quit

The sooner you quit, the sooner your body can begin to heal, and the less likely you are to get sick from tobacco use.

 

 

Get help

Ask a health care provider for help quitting and visit the Colorado Quitline at coquitline.org (Spanish: dejeloyacolorado.org)  for free assistance.

 

Quit guide

Find a step-by-step quit guide at www.smokefree.gov.

 

State and community leaders can:

  • Fund comprehensive tobacco control programs at CDC-recommended levels.
  • Enact 100 percent smoke-free indoor air policies that include workplaces, restaurants and bars.
  • Increase the price of all tobacco and nicotine products.
  • Implement hard-hitting media campaigns that raise public awareness of the dangers of tobacco use, secondhand smoke, and vape exposure.
  • Use the World Health Organization's MPOWER strategies to prevent and reduce tobacco use and to make tobacco products less accessible, affordable, attractive and accepted:
    • M = Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies.
    • P = Protect people from tobacco smoke.
    • O = Offer help to quit.
    • W = Warn about the dangers of tobacco use.
    • E = Enforce restrictions on tobacco advertising.
    • R = Raise taxes on tobacco.
       

 

Parents and people who don’t smoke can:

  • Make your home and vehicles smoke and vape-free.
  • Not start, if you aren't already using tobacco.
  • Quit if you smoke or vape.
    • Children of parents who smoke are twice as likely to begin smoking.
  • Teach children about the health risks of smoking and vaping and secondhand smoke and vape.
  • Encourage friends, family, and co-workers to quit.
     

 

Health care providers can:

  • Ask their patients if they use tobacco or nicotine.
    • If they do, help them quit.
  • Refer patients interested in quitting to the Colorado Quitline, smokefree.gov, or other resources.
  • Advise all patients to make their homes and vehicles 100 percent smoke- and vape-free.
  • Advise individuals who don’t smoke to avoid secondhand smoke exposure.
     

 

Employers can:

  • Establish a policy banning the use of any tobacco product indoors or outdoors on company property by anyone at any time.
  • Provide all employees and their dependents with health insurance that covers support for quitting with little or no co-payment.
     

 

Retailers can:

  • Learn the new Food and Drug Administration restrictions on youth access to tobacco products and tobacco marketing to youth, and closely follow them.
  • Follow state laws.
    • Visit the Colorado Department of Revenue website to learn more.
  • Never sell any tobacco product to customers younger than 21. 
  • Check the photo ID of any customer trying to buy tobacco products who appears to be 26 or younger.