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Trying to quit smoking? Go to the bank
Written by Lilita Balane
Thursday, 05 March 2009
An anti-poverty group and a local bank in Agusan del Norte have started a savings program to help smokers kick the habit

How can somebody who’s poor but addicted to nicotine stop smoking? Nicotine substitutes and cessation therapies, at P80 to P100 a day, would definitely be prohibitive for a low-income smoker.

In Agusan del Norte province, the non-government group Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) partnered with the Rural Green Bank of Caraga to offer an alternative quit-smoking program. Adopting the slogan, “Put your money where your butt is,” they started a program where a smoker opens a savings account and, for six months, deposits there the money he would have spent on cigarettes.

If he successfully kicks the habit of smoking at the end of six months, he gets his entire savings back and is encouraged to start a small enterprise. If he fails, he has to give up to charity whatever he has deposited.

“Smoking cessation programs are rarely available in the rural areas. We designed the CARES product to support smokers who want to quit smoking, by providing financial incentives for smoking cessation,” said Gerald Owen Guillen, head of Green Bank’s microfinance department. CARES stands for Committed Action to Reduce and End Smoking.

Nicotine, a natural yet addictive substance, is found in cigarettes. Smokers who attempt to quit suffer from craving to smoke, irritability, headache, tightness of chest, and coughing, among others.

Nicotine replacement therapy is one way to help smokers gradually lessen their dependence on nicotine. It reduces their withdrawal symptoms by letting nicotine get into the bloodstream without puffing a cigarette. Instead of cigarettes, smokers have to take nicotine in other forms, like gums, patches, or tablets.

Dorotheo Ulysses, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance’s coordinator for the Southeast Asia and Western Pacific regions, said that at present smoking cessation means in the Philippines are limited only to nicotine substitutes, like transdermal patches, nicorette chewing gums, and a drug called Champix.

Some NGOs and religious groups offer cessation counseling for smokers. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, for example, has a “Breathe-Free” clinic in their headquarters in Cebu City. The clinic provides counseling for nicotine-dependent patients, while encouraging them to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

IPA thought that a savings commitment program would be a less expensive smoking cessation alternative.

Launched in 2006, the program has since brought 249 clients to Green Bank’s microfinance branches in Butuan City—in Barangay Ampayon and the in the city proper. Each of these clients earns an average of P3,000 to P4,000 and spends an average of P92 a month on cigarettes.

A smoker who signs up for the program is required to make an initial deposit and maintain a minimum balance of P50. Green Bank gives him a lockbox where he will put his tobacco money. Every week, a Green Bank field staff collects the money that the smoker has saved and deposits it in one of the bank’s microfinance branches.

At the end of the sixth month, the smoker undergoes a nicotine test. If he passes, he can withdraw his savings, without interest. If he fails the test, CARES closes his account and donates the money to charity. As of March 2008, says Ann Mayuga of IPA, their organization has donated P21,652.75 of smokers’ monies to Balay Silongan, an orphanage in Butuan City.

In cases where a client fails to show up for a scheduled nicotine test, he is given three more weeks. Failure to appear again would mean forfeiture of his account balance. Same thing applies for clients who failed to deposit their tobacco money for three consecutive weeks. The average amount of confiscated balances is P277.

Mayuga says that, on the average, a client makes 11 deposits and saves P551 over the six-month smoking cessation period. A good number of them—around 80 percent of the clients—decide to set aside more contributions during that cessation period and end up with an average balance of P1,079 at the end of the program.

However, Mayuga says they do not monitor how the successful clients spend their money after the program.

In their evaluation report in 2008, Green Bank and IPA said that CARES clients are 3.3 to 5.8 percent more likely to pass the nicotine test than smokers who are trying to quit smoking on their own.

“We see the same level of impact six months and 12 months after the program implementation. Even though the CARES program duration was only six months, the clients were able to abstain from smoking in the long-term,” Guillen said. “It’s a way to encourage long-term welfare improvements of the clients and their families.”

One of the successful clients, 34-year old Iris Cua, started smoking when she was 18, and had since found it hard to quit. “I attempted to quit [smoking] when I got pregnant in 2003, but after I gave birth, I continued my one pack of cigarettes a day.”

She says CARES motivated her to reduce her tobacco use and eventually helped her stop smoking.

Dorotheo says that the CARES program is unique and might be effective if smokers will first realize that they need a smoking cessation program. “It’s a matter of supply and demand. Smoking cessation would come in if the smokers realize the need for it. When they realize the ill-effects of smoking, and begin to ask who could help them,” he said. (Newsbreak)

http://newsbreak.com.ph/index.php?option...d=88889066