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Health officials hope smokers will take a day off from lighting up today as part of the 34th Great American Smokeout.
The nationwide event was started in 1976 to encourage smokers to quit for at least one day.
Locally, Kennewick General Hospital is marking the event by announcing its transition to a smoke-free campus starting in January.
"We are encouraging all of our staff to quit and are providing free resources to our staff to help them quit smoking," said Cathy Peterson, KGH's director of education.
For those trying to quit, the Tri-Cities Cancer Center offers monthly tobacco cessation classes that help smokers and tobacco chewers identify the reasons why they use tobacco and how they can break the patterns, said Cindy Miller, the cancer center's community educator.
The next class is Dec. 8, and the cancer center will offer weekly classes through January.
"We basically find during the holidays is a stressful time when it's difficult for people to quit smoking," Miller said. "But everyone thinks they want to be healthier in January."
Each free class is about 90 minutes and gives tobacco users tools for figuring out their smoking or chewing habits, such as identifying that they light up every time they get in the car.
"Once you know a trigger, you can maybe do things in a different pattern to quit smoking," Miller said.
In Benton County, 19.1 percent of adults were smokers in 2008 according to data from the state Department of Health. That was up from 16.4 percent in 2007.
Almost 9 percent of Franklin County adults smoked in 2008, compared to 13 percent in 2007.
About 15 percent of adults smoked statewide.
Among children and teens, the health department's most recent survey data collected in fall 2008 showed 2.3 percent of Benton County sixth-graders smoked. The numbers climb the older the students: 6.6 percent of eighth-graders, 15.3 percent of 10th-graders and 20.6 percent of 12th-graders said they smoked.
In Franklin County, 2.7 percent of sixth-graders, 7.6 percent of eighth-graders, 12.4 percent of 10th-graders and 12.8 percent of 12th-graders smoked, according to the survey.
The smoking rates among Benton and Franklin county children and teens mostly exceeded state averages, which were 1.4 percent for sixth-graders, 7.3 percent for eighth-graders, 14.4 percent for 10th-graders and 20 percent for 12th-graders.
The health department reported 7,500 smoking-related deaths in Washington in 2008, and $1.5 billion spent on health care costs resulting from tobacco use.
Lung cancer is among the most well-known smoking risks. It causes the most deaths, and 87 percent of lung cancer deaths can be attributed to tobacco, according to the American Cancer Society.
But Miller said tobacco can cause problems throughout a person's body.
"People don't realize tobacco affects much more than your lungs," she said. "It's anything from the oral cavity, to the bladder, the reproductive organs, the stomach. You're two to three times more likely to even get bladder cancer from smoking. It's really your whole system."
She said it's never too late to quit, even if someone has been smoking for years.
"If people quit smoking, it really does make a change in their body within minutes," Miller said.
To find help quitting, call the American Cancer Society's Quitline at 800-227-2345, state Tobacco Quit Line at 800-784-8669, or call the Tri-Cities Cancer Center at 737-3420 to register for a tobacco cessation class.
