Quit smoking, save money, the Nunavut government says

The Government of Nunavut’s “Tobacco has no place here” campaign travelled to Gjoa Haven last October to work with students at Qiqirtaq High School to learn about the negative effects of tobacco use. Now, the GN’s “quit calculator” estimates smokers can save $5,840 a year if they quit smoking. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GN)

You can save a lot of money if you quit smoking.

That’s the latest message from the Government of Nunavut’s “Nunavut Quits” campaign, part of the “Tobacco has no place here” campaign, launched in January 2012.

The campaign website offers resources on quitting smoking, facts on how tobacco affects the body and now a “quit calculator” to show you much money you can save if you quit smoking.

Based on a price of $16 per pack, if you smoke a pack a day, or 25 cigarettes, you can save $112 a week, $480 a month, $5,840 a year, $29,200 in five years — and $58,400 in 10 years — if you stop buying cigarettes.

The campaign asks Nunavummiut to “forget cigarettes, start spending your money on things close to your heart, like family, friends and community.”

And it suggests treating yourself to a new snowmobile, “a trip down south or even some fabric and fur to make a new parka” to give yourself the incentive to quit.

“Many ex-smokers say that these rewards helped them stay on track during the weeks and months after quitting,” the website says.

The goal of the campaign: to inspire people to take a hard look at smoking in the North and to take action towards quitting.

Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death globally,” the World Health Organization states on its website, “and is currently responsible for killing one in 10 adults worldwide.”

That statistic may be even worse in Nunavut. The territorial government reported earlier this year that some 60 per cent of territorial residents older than 12 smoked cigarettes daily in 2011, amounting to three times the national average.

The death rates for lung cancer among Nunavut women is about five times greater than for Canada as a whole and the lung cancer death rate for Nunavut men is about four times greater.

For some contributors to the “Tobacco has no place here” campaign’s website, the quit message, which also urges people to write about their experience with tobacco, appears to be getting through:

“I had a mother who smoked cigarettes called Rothmans and every time I see a package of those I think this is what killed my mother as she died of lung cancer,” a Rankin Inlet resident says on the “share your story” option.

“[It] makes me very sad to see people smoking especially the ones that I know have had a lot of health problems, it makes me sad to see them going outside in the cold to go smoke, I know that a lot of people like to deny that it’s the tobacco or nicotine that is causing a lot of their health issues.”