A ground-breaking campaign to get the country's 460,000 smokers to give up the tobacco is being rolled out in Kaitaia next week.
Stoptober is the Ministry of Health's biggest ever stop smoking challenge and aims to help Kiwis who still smoke to give up the habit.
Kaitaia is where the campaign will start on Monday at the old Pak 'n Save building on Commerce St at 10am.
The big red Stoptober ball will start off in Kaitaia and roll through the country throughout September with smoking cessation providers signing up those who want to quit.
Figures from last year's census show that Northlanders are leading the national trend of stopping smoking, with 28.1 per cent of the population (or 29,400 people) identifying themselves as ex-smokers in last year's census. This compared with 22.9 per cent nationally.
As well, the proportion of adults in the region who said they were regular smokers dropped from 25.7 per cent in the 2006 Census to 19.1 per cent in 2013, a decrease of 5853 people.
Among people in Northland aged 15-19 years, the proportion who regularly smoked dropped from 24.8 per cent in 2006 to 14.2 per cent in 2013. That means there were 1119 fewer smokers in this age group in the region, a decrease of 49.1 per cent since 2006.
Smoking is the leading cause of avoidable death and disease in New Zealand. An estimated 5000 New Zealanders, 600 of them Maori, die every year from tobacco-related causes.
Tobacco is related to a quarter of all deaths in Northland and 47 per cent of all Maori deaths in the region and is a major factor in the difference of 14.9 years in life expectancy between Maori and non-Maori in the region.
The damage caused by smoking is a major problem in Northland, with smoking-related hospitalisations 1.5 times higher than the national rate. If they quit, an average smoker will be saving more than $2000 a year. Visit www.stoptobernz.co.nz to register for the Stoptober campaign and you will get all the support you need, from stop smoking support, including face-to-face, online and phone, to motivational texts and emails, a free Stoptober app which has stress-release support in Te Reo Maori and English and nicotine replacement products.
• To get help to stop smoking, talk to your local health provider, Aukati Kai Paipa quit coach (www.aukatikaipaipa.co.nz) or call Quitline on 0800 778-778.