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New York City has experienced a dramatic decrease in smoking rates. In 2008 the City hit an all-time low of 15.8% of adult New Yorkers smoking, thanks to the efforts of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's (DOHMH) five-point tobacco control program. These dramatic reductions in smoking in NYC since 2002 have hinged on the City's cigarette tax, the highest combined state-local tax in the country, and the Smoke Free Air Act, which banned smoking in public workplaces, quit resources and tools, and a hard-hitting educational campaign.
To extend strong anti-smoking messaging to areas of NYC where smoking rates were still high, grant funding was used to print matchbooks with graphic images of ravaged lungs, rotting gums and large, painful tumors. The matchbooks were part of the "Cigarettes are Eating You Alive" campaign launched in 2008 and were printed in English and Spanish. Over 400,000 matchbooks were printed in English and Spanish and distributed to 132 cigarette retailers in the South Bronx, Central and East Harlem and northern and central Brooklyn.
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