Statewide Tobacco Control Initiatives
At the statewide level, the tobacco use prevention and cessation unit functions to provide oversight, technical assistance and training to local health departments and tobacco control grant recipients ensuring that their efforts are coordinated with the statewide program goals and messages.
Youth and Young Adult Tobacco Use Prevention
MDQuit Resource Center
Legal Resource Center for Tobacco Regulation Litigation and Advocacy
Smoking Cessation in Pregnancy (S.C.I.P.)
Health Communications and Countermarketing
Youth and Young Adult Tobacco Use Prevention
T.R.A.S.H.
Maryland Teens Rejecting Abusive Smoking Habits is a statewide movement of youth-led coalitions dedicated to increasing teens’ awareness of the negative health effects of using tobacco products and exposes the deceptive practices of the tobacco industry.
Our Goals Include:
- Preventing youth from using tobacco
- Helping youth who are already using tobacco to quit
- Reducing secondhand smoke exposure to youth
- Creating and maintaining youth-led anti-tobacco coalitions
- Engaging youth in community action against tobacco use
- Exposing the facts about tobacco use and its negative health effects
- Reducing positive attitudes about tobacco by deglamorizing tobacco use
- Connecting with other statewide youth anti-tobacco coalitions from across the United States and worldwide
For more information, visit www.marylandtrash.com.
S.T.O.P.S.
The Students Together Organizing Prevention Strategies Coalition is a collaboration of Maryland's college and university tobacco control coalitions that have united to create healthier, tobacco-free campuses across the state.
The main purposes of the S.T.O.P.S. coalitions are to implement activities and programs focusing on tobacco use prevention and to provide support and resources to those on campus who want to quit using tobacco. This is accomplished through building relationships with other campuses, offering prevention and education initiatives, establishing and supporting campus and statewide policies, and sustaining diverse involvement within the coalition. The key to these campus-based coalitions is that students take the lead role in deciding their campus initiatives. S.T.O.P.S. core functions include:
- Students, along with their advisor, join to form a diverse campus tobacco control coalition
- Each campus coalition conducts regular planning activities, including coalition meetings, and implements tobacco control initiatives on campus
- A statewide meeting is held at least once a semester allowing all campus-based coalitions to network and share ideas for campus and statewide initiatives.
For more information, visit www.marylandstops.com.
MDQuit Resource Center (for professionals and providers)
MDQuit (Maryland Quitting Use and Initiation of Tobacco) is the information resource center for tobacco use cessation and prevention for the State of Maryland. The resource center is dedicated to assisting providers and programs in reducing tobacco use among Maryland residents. The mission is to link tobacco control professionals and healthcare providers to state tobacco initiatives, to provide evidence-based, effective tools and resources to local programs, to create and support an extensive collaborative network of tobacco use prevention and cessation professionals, and to provide a forum for sharing best practices to reduce tobacco use throughout the State of Maryland.
The major functions of MDQuit are:
- Manage the Fax to Assist program, which gives providers an additional opportunity to easily, quickly, and effectively connect clients with individualized tobacco cessation help.
- Provide easy access to evidence-based programs and materials for tobacco use prevention and cessation. In addition to the information and links on their website, MDQuit offers access to a library of print materials in the Resource Center at UMBC.
For more information, visit www.mdquit.org
Legal Resource Center for Tobacco Regulation, Litigation and Advocacy
The Legal Resource Center for Tobacco Regulation, Litigation and Advocacy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Law is dedicated to providing legal support to communities, community groups, employers, local governments, and State legislators and agencies interested in reducing the negative health consequences of tobacco use. The Center works closely with the Office of the Attorney General of Maryland on various tobacco control initiatives, and is active in assisting members of the General Assembly who are desirous of drafting and gaining passage of tobacco control legislation. Twice a year the Center publishes Tobacco Regulation Review, a widely distributed newsletter that summarizes local, state and national tobacco control legal issues
Center projects include:
- Drafting ordinances to reduce smoking and smoking related injuries, with a particular emphasis on laws designed to reduce youth access to tobacco products and to protect workers from secondhand smoke in the workplace.
- Providing technical support to state and local legislators interested in sponsoring tobacco control legislation.
- Giving technical advice to community coalitions in advocating for ordinances before state and local legislative or regulatory bodies.
- Evaluating alternative strategies for reducing tobacco use based on study of the experience of other states and localities.
- Delivering resources and advice to local governments when an ordinance is challenged
For more information, visit http://www.law.umaryland.edu/programs/tobacco/
Smoking Cessation in Pregnancy (S.C.I.P.)
The Smoking Cessation in Pregnancy (S.C.I.P.) program is a multi-component intervention designed to help the pregnant smoker to quit. It is a low-intensity, nurse driven program for patients receiving prenatal care from one of Maryland's local health departments or Medicaid Managed Health Providers. Pregnant smokers meet with nurses who counsel and help them quit or reduce their cigarette consumption. The objectives are:
- To reduce the number of pregnant women who smoke throughout and after their pregnancies
- To reduce the smoking-related complications of pregnancy
- To reduce the percentage of low birth weight babies
- To reduce the infant mortality rate
- To contribute to a reduction in the prevalence of smoking in the adult population
Along with one-on-one counseling, participants receive self-help materials in the form of a manual and a "Quit Kit". Quit & Be Free - Health in Pregnancy is a patient manual designed to assist pregnant smokers in quitting. The "Quit Kit" contains a smoke-free baby T-shirt, a meditation CD and other items to help the pregnant smoker cope with cigarette cravings.
Lastly, we do offer a FREE training that can be conducted to better educate staff on smoking cessation and pregnant women. If you would like to schedule training or receive materials, please use the appropriate order forms found within the Trainings and Materials Order Information link.
Health Communications and Countermarketing
The tobacco use prevention and cessation unit works to develop and maintain campaigns to counter advertisements of the tobacco industry and promote cessation services that are available to all residents, specifically the Maryland Tobacco Quitline (1-800-QUIT-NOW). Advertisements have been placed on TV, radio, buses, taxis tops, bus shelters, billboards, a mobile truck that travels to events, direct mail, and websites and are focused on motivating residents to quit and/or to think about the health impacts of tobacco use.
Campaigns have been built upon hearing from residents in focus groups about what motivates them to quit. Successful campaigns have featured real Marylanders sharing their story of how they became tobacco-free. New stories continue to be developed to resonate with all tobacco users that are trying to quit.