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NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – “Do you live in Louisiana and do you attest that you began smoking prior to September 1, 1988? If those things are true, you’re going to be approved,” Rogers says.

Nearly 29,000 people have already been approved for the free help of Smoking Cessation Trust Management Services, where Rogers is the man in charge. He says about half the smokers in the state qualify for the program — that’s around 211,000 Louisiana residents.

Using the September 1988 requirement as a guideline, Rogers says the tobacco users who could get help are around age 35 and up.

“Smokers are never gonna get a better deal than this, and the beauty is we’re using tobacco’s money to do it!

He says the new city ordinance has no impact on his goal to snuff out smoking, but he’s hoping the trend spreads like wildfire, because New Orleans has the potential to be a trendsetter.

“Because New Orleans is so big and everyone sort of viewed it as the last bastion of whatever you want to call it, the culture that would support and romanticize smoking as a feature of our culture, as opposed to sickness and death — in that order.”

The Smoking Cessation Trust was born from a lengthy legal battle that was adjudicated in 2011.

“What the court decided was if you had been harmed prior to September 1, 1988, then you could be in the class and if you had been harmed by cigarettes or the industry after that, you couldn’t be,” explains Rogers.
The judgment meant 272 million dollars, most of which is being used to provide doctor visits, coaching, counseling and medication.

“Patches gum, Chantix, the whole works, whatever their doctor wants them to be on, is what we will cover,” says Rogers, adding that the program has zero to do with a person’s health insurance.

Another plus is that smokers get more than one chance to quit.

Click here to register for the program.

“Our program allows you to try twice a year. We do two 120-day what we call ‘quit attempts’ per year, for the rest of the life of the program,” says Rogers.

The program runs through mid-2022, according to the terms of the judgment.