Enhanced Tobacco Quit Line

MADISON - Wisconsin smokers can get some extra help in their battle to kick the habit.Smokers who call the state's Tobacco Quit Line after January 1st can get a two-week starter kit of nicotine medicines along with coaching help.The cost of the kit is being paid for by the additional one dollar per pack excise tax that takes effect at the beginning of the year.Smoking cessation experts say quitting smoking is traditionally one of the top new year's resolutions.They say if you've tried to quit and were unsuccessful--keep trying, it usually takes between 4 and 6 attempts before a smoker can break the habit.Dr. Michael Fiore, the Director of the UW Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention says "This is a powerful addiction. It's not just some bad habit that you pick-up and put away at the drop of a hat. What we know is that you're most likely to successfully quit if you plan for it, you take steps and use the treatment, we know that it will increase that likelihood." Fiore says the Quit Line began in 2001 and has helped more than 50,000 smokers reduce their dependence on tobacco.The line is available from 7 am until 11 pm 7 days a week.

Story By: Terry Kelley

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to day 31 december

Dec 31 1980
Marshall McLuhan dead at age 69.
Dec 31 1982
A coordinated series of four bombs planted by the Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN explode in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan inside of 90 minutes, injuring three police.
Dec 31 1984
The drummer from Def Leppard, Rick Allen, has his arm torn off in a car accident. He continues with the band single-handedly.
Dec 31 1985
Rock musician Ricky Nelson dies in an airplane crash in De Kalb, TX at age 45.
Dec 31 1999
Paris intends the Eiffel Tower to lay "a gigantic egg" at midnight to honor the coming millenium. What do they smoke in Paris?

Dec 31 1973

Dec 31 1973

Carlos the Jackal tries to assassinate Teddy Zeiff, Jewish owner of a major English department store chain. His gun jams. But we all learn his name when he takes the OPEC ministers hostage two years later.

Dec 31 1970
The Beatles break up, as Paul McCartney files suit to dissolve their partnership

Dec 31 1916
Forty-five retarded girls die in a fire at the St. Ferdinand de Halifax convent asylum in Canada

2 day history

Dec 31 1898
Joseph Vacher, known as "Jack the Ripper of France", guillotined. He had a hideous appearance and suffered from Bell's Palsy, a partial paralysis of the face. Vacher killed and mutilated at least 14 victims, young men and women, and commited necrophilia on many of their corpses.

MISUSED MEDICINE the DANGER

What's a cat's favorite drug?, MEOWthamphetamine

In December of 2005, Linda Green, the widow of an Oklahoma State Trooper killed by a violent meth addict, filed a wrongful-death suit against Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Walgreen, Dollar General and United Supermarkets -- arguing the companies knew they were supplying meth addicts with the tools of their trade। The word smurfing does not appear once in the document.

The War on Drugs is stronger now than it's ever been, and states like Oklahoma have already pioneered new laws banning certain types of cough syrup containing pseudo-ephedrine and other ingredients. The purpose of this legislation is to get pain relievers off the shelves where they might be bought in bulk. The bill passed easily in 2004, ushering in a new era of red-flagged sales, purchases tracked with fingerprints and photo IDs, and signature logs establishing direct paper trails capable of linking you and your stoner buddies to that basement treasure trove of Winnie the Pooh Sneezy-Head Flu gelatinous caps. Ephedrine all by itself, as an ingredient, can fetch $3,000 per pound on the street.
But law enforcement is essentially helpless: they can't possibly bust every single mobile and stationary lab in town. In Georgia, police chased the "Mailbox Meth Gang," a group of twenty talented addicts who kept an eye out for raised red flags on the mailboxes of their neighborhood's housing subdivisions. Such mailboxes were observed to contain checks, bank statements, credit card offers, and other forms of ID suitable for plundering. The Mailbox Meth Gang secured roughly 14,000 credit card numbers, which they used in the service of securing more meth. One defendant who pled guilty to fifty-six counts of identity theft received close to a full year in the county jail.

The HEALTH NEWS

24-year-old organ donor gives 'gift of life' to 4 others
The 24-year-old's lungs, liver and kidneys were donated after her sudden death।

Erika Castillo-Sanchez, 24, suffered a stroke after a blood clot and died Monday। (HILDA M. PEREZ, ORLANDO SENTINEL / December 27, 2007)

Katie Fretland Sentinel Staff Writer
December 28, 2007

TODAY HISTORY

1. Dec 28 1908
   An earthquake in Messina, Sicily kills 160,000। Nearly all of the city is destroyed. Countless art treasures are destroyed, as well as the Cathedral Annunziata dei Catalani.


2. Dec 28 1983

Dennis Wilson, original drummer of the Beach Boys, drowned while diving from a boat near Marquesas Pier। He was rather drunk at the time

1. Dec 28 1987
   R. Gene Simmons kills two coworkers and injures four others in Russellville Arkansas, and then surrenders. The busy man had killed 14 of his relatives over the Christmas होलिदय्स

Dec 28 1991
Jack Rubys pIstol, used to kill Lee Harvey Oswald, sells at auction at Christie's for $220,000.