Awareness Observances

Through With Chew Week

February 

Objective: Educate smokeless tobacco users and others about the dangers of using smokeless tobacco.

Overview: Through with Chew was started in 1989 by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation, Inc. The objective was to provide a public education campaign on spit tobacco, coordinated with dentists, healthcare providers, sports coaches, and teachers. In 1994, Oral Health America's National Spit Tobacco Education Program (NSTEP) partnered with TWC in an attempt to break the connection between baseball and smokeless tobacco. Through with Chew Week is observed during the third full week in February, with the Great American Spit Out taking place the Thursday of that week.

Take Down Tobacco National Day (formerly Kick Butts Day)

April 1

Objective: Encourage smokers and smokeless tobacco users to "kick" the habit of using tobacco in target communities statewide.

Overview: Take Down Tobacco is a national day of action that empowers people to stand up and speak out against the tobacco industry. Every spring, hundreds of communities hold events and rally together to Take Down Tobacco.

Visit Take Down Tobacco.

Great American Smokeout (GASO)

November 

Objective: Educate tobacco users and others about the dangers of smoking and encourage them to quit by promoting the health benefits of quitting in target communities statewide.

Overview: The idea for GASO stemmed from a 1971 request from Arthur P. Mullany, a Guidance Counselor from Randolph, Massachusetts, asking citizens to give up smoking for one day and donate the money they would have spent on cigarettes to a scholarship fund. Three years later in Minnesota, the editor of the Monticello Times, Lynn R. Smith organized "Don't Smoke Day" also known as "D-Day." The American Cancer Society successfully got one million smokers to quit for the day on November 18, 1976, which is recognized as the first Smokeout. The following year, in 1977, the event went nationwide and is now recognized on the third Thursday in November each year.

Visit Great American Smokeout.