QUIT line calls up 300pc after Bacon news

Tasmanian smokers have inundated the QUIT hotline in the wake of the outgoing Premier Jim Bacon’s revelation he has inoperable lung cancer.

Tasmanian smokers have inundated the QUIT hotline in the wake of the outgoing Premier Jim Bacon’s revelation he has inoperable lung cancer.Mr Bacon has smoked for 35 years and has urged smokers to stop and those who do not smoke not to start.Quit Tasmania executive director Michael Wilson says since Mr Bacon announced yesterday he was retiring from politics because of his illness, calls to the Quit hotline have increased by 300 per cent.”Which really caught us off-guard – a lot of people have been moved, particularly the vision of him on TV where he was obviously extremely powerful in the message that he got across to the community in his resignation as Premier,” Mr Wilson said.”The people that smoke out there are completely refreshed by the Premier’s openness and his honesty and perhaps the way that he’s admitted that has made a foolish mistake, despite many attempts to give up – it’s just finally caught up with him unfortunately.”(Source: ABC Health News, Feb 2004)