If you’ve already broken your New Year’s Resolution to quit smoking or vaping, you can get FREE help, including nicotine patches from the NYC government program that has helped more than 400,000 New Yorkers quit smoking since 2006.
In addition to free nicotine-replacement patches, you’ll also get information and support on how to handle nicotine withdrawal, group resources, and more.
NY Smoke Free is new name for the program that used to be called NY Quits.
Click here to register for the free nicotine patches, and use the money you are saving for groceries, even a family vacation.
How much is pack of cigarettes in NYC these days? Close to $20.
If you smoke one pack a week for a year, that’s more than $700.
Think of what you could do with an extra $700.
If you smoke half a pack a week for a year, that’s around $2,600 you are burning through.
Think of what you could do with an extra $2,600.
And it’s not just cigarettes.
Health dangers from vaping
There are similar serious health effects from smoking e-cigarettes, now called vaping, including the highly advertised Juul, from the federal Centers for Disease Control and prevention, also known as the CDC.
Just so you know – the tobacco giant that makes Marlboro cigarettes bought a $12 Billion stake in Juul in 2018.
- Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine. Nicotine is highly addictive and can harm adolescent brain development, which continues into the early to mid-20s.1
- E-cigarettes can contain other harmful substances besides nicotine.
- Young people who use e-cigarettes may be more likely to smoke cigarettes in the future.
If you are concerned at all with your vaping device or products
or just want more information, contact vaping.inquiries@health.ny.gov.
Check the official NYSmokeFree website for resources, including:
- How to talk to your children about the dangers of vaping.
Anyone experiencing symptoms who uses vape products should contact their healthcare provider immediately.
Healthcare providers should report possible cases to the local poison control center (1-800-222-1222).
The CDC advises that if you have Medicaid insurance or are covered by another health insurance plan, your insurance will cover stop smoking medications when the free nicotine patches run out.
Call your Medicaid or health insurance plan today, and find out more about the stop smoking medications that are covered for you.
This article on NYC’s quit smoking program has been published periodically since 2016, and updated for 2020.
Evelyn Kanter is a native New Yorker who has written for the NY Times, NY Daily News, NY Post, New York Magazine, and is a former on-air reporter for WCBS Newsradio 88 and WABC-TV Eyewitness News.
Evelyn Kanter also is the author of several NYC and Hudson Valley guidebooks, including my latest, 100 Things to Do in NYC Before You Die.
NYC on the Cheap is a member of
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