CANCER SOCIETY HOSTS SMOKEOUT TODAY

Today marks the second most famous Thursday in November, next to Thanksgiving. It's a day when millions of Americans will be talking turkey -- cold turkey.

The American Cancer Society's annual Great American Smokeout is an upbeat, good-natured effort to encourage smokers to give up cigarettes for 24 hours, if only to prove to themselves they can. They might give up smoking for good.

Now in its 17th year as a nationwide celebration, the term smokeout was coined in 1971 by Arthur P. Mullaney of Randolph, Mass. when he challenged his community to give up cigarettes for a day and donate the savings to a local scholarship fund.

The idea spread westward to California where it was renamed the Great American Smokeout.

Today about 18 million Americans are expected to give up smoking for 24 hours. Studies have shown that the most successful quitters are those who begin to make changes in their habit, such as postponing the first cigarette of the day or limiting the times and places where they smoke.

The Great American Smokeout offers smokers an opportunity to prove to themselves that they can make the first step to quitting.