How Are We Only Doing This Now?

A massive study designed to help Ontarians quit smoking is offering free nicotine replacement therapy to 14,000 smokers across the province.

Called STOP — Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients — the provincially backed study is the first of its kind in Canada. You don't need to be a patient to apply. Just a smoker with a willingness to end the habit.

"Smokers have been clamouring for this," says Dr. Peter Selby, the study's principal investigator and the clinical director of addiction programs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. "We know that there's a huge demand for this — smokers are wanting help."

Free nicotine patches or nicotine gum will be mailed to applicants who qualify after a phone interview. Judging by the response just hours after the program was announced yesterday, Canada Post will be very busy.

"Currently, we've got 150 calls on per second," Selby said early yesterday afternoon about the $3 million program.

Some have argued - incorrectly - that smokers cost the health care system less than other patients, primarily because they die younger. This would be true only if all deaths were created equal. Cancer - and especially lung cancer - are expensive to treat, and even the terminal patients get lots of care that might not be necessary for other dying patients.

All of this is to say that the economics for this move are a no-brainer. Not all these patients are going to avoid the probable cancer death in their future. But given the difference in costs between the patch and chemotherapy, this is an obvious move we should have been doing years ago.