Do You Plan to Quit Smoking in 2013?

We here at Patch end up on mailing lists all over the place, for events and stories with absolutely no connection to our coverage areas.

While an email we received Tuesday morning follows this path, it's a subject that goes well beyond geographic boundaries.

The Legacy Foundation on Tuesday released a new study indicating 34 percent of smokers plan on quitting in 2013, twice as many as in 2012, the press release notes. How they were able to survey every smoker on the planet must be the work of magic and we are not going to dig deeper for fear they will turn us into a frog or something.

One of the biggest reasons for the higher number of proposed quitters, according to the release, is the increasing cost of visiting Flavor Country.

(For tangential reference, when this happy-go-lucky writer first took up the habit all the way back in 1993----Marlboro Lights were $2 a pack, and 20 off-brand smokes could easily be gotten for $1.25. When he last smoked on May 1, 2012, most non-sale-priced cigarettes were about $7 a pack. Some places, like New York City, sell cigarettes for over $11 a pack now) 

"Unfortunately, the majority of smokers who try to quit without help relapse within the first eight days--a.k.a. today, Jan. 8th," the release states.

Such is the inherent problem with picking a day like New Years Day to make such momentous, life-altering choices that have a greater chance of being broken. Pick a boring day. Either way, the quitting is the most important part.

What we want to know is if you are one of the 34 percent that they were somehow able to survey, who informed them that 2013 is your year to quit smoking. Have you seen the dropping number of smokers? Is it situation-specific? Let us know in the poll and comments section below.