Tomorrow is the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout. Smokers are encouraged to stop smoking at least for one day. Hopefully, tomorrow will be the first day of many long smokefree lives.

The Smokeout is just one way the society is trying to create a smokefree society by the year 2,000. The dangers and health risks associated with smoking have been known for a long time.

In addition to cancer, smoking has been linked to heart disease, emphysema, birth defects and a host of other maladies. Not to mention the fact that smokers are more likely to inadvertantly start fires.

It is a tribute to American health professionals and educators that such information is now common knowledge in this country. Especially when one considers the fact that tobacco was the first major cash crop produced in this country and continues to be a multi-billion dollar industry. Remarkably, the society has managed to divorce many Americans from a hazardous product which is as American as the Stetson.

Whether we will become a smokefree society by the year 2,000 remains to be seen. But we are already on a steady course toward the goal.

Offices, factories, restaurants, airlines and public buildings all across the country are either going smokefree or segregating smokers from non-smokers. American society as a whole, is not only understanding the hazards of smoking but finally telling smokers to keep their smoke to themselves.

There are no viable arguments to support lighting up. But there are thousands of reasons to quit—one for each day your life is extended.