Cal Poly’s Mustangs For Recovery partnered with the public health club and Mustang Health and Wellbeing to celebrate “The Great American Smokeout” on Thursday on the Health Center Lawn. The event has a mission opposite of its title.
Rebranded at Cal Poly as “Quit Day,” the event joins the American Cancer Society’s annual call each November for smokers to quit for good.
As the first collegiate recovery program in the California State University system, founded in 2018, Mustangs For Recovery led the university’s showcase. The group provided resources and information to students looking to quit.
Renee Wang, a public health sophomore, is doing research as an intern for the Tobacco Control Program, an organization also present at the Smokeout. She believes the showcase is a great way for the community to come together and support nicotine users in quitting.
“I’ve been around smokers my whole life, and I think it’s really important to kind of let everyone know that there’s options out there to quit, and that you’re not alone to quit,” Wang said.
Mustangs for Recovery provides quitting services and materials at reduced costs to students through the campus health center. Nicotine Replacement Therapy is offered in the campus pharmacy and includes items like nicotine patches, gum and other medicines.
The program also highlighted the misinformation surrounding using non-smoking products as a method of quitting. Although many items are marketed as “smoke free,” and are not directly damaging users’ lungs, they are indirectly contributing to addictive habits and can lead to smoking cigarettes.
“A lot of people think that it’s helping them quit, when reality is actually making them more addictive because of the volume of nicotine is actually in there,” intern for the Tobacco Control Program and Cal Poly graduate Timothy Mai said.
To demonstrate the health risks of smoking, the event also featured a live demonstration of a healthy lung versus a smoker’s lung.
Cal Poly’s Mustangs For Recovery offers both open and closed meetings for students in the process of recovery, recovery allies or affected by a loved one’s addiction, according to the Mustangs for Recovery website.
