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.

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

• 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 and 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.

• 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.