South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative

The grant award includes almost $6 million during the next two years. It will be distributed to the Florence County Community Coalition for Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Abuse Prevention and the Horry County BREATHE Coalition to focus on initiatives such as:

• Educating youth about the dangers of tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure,
• Helping community and school leaders enact smoke-free and tobacco-free policies,
• Offering nicotine replacement therapy to Florence and Horry county residents who enroll in S.C. Tobacco Quitline services,
• Working with the area’s prenatal healthcare providers to reduce smoking during pregnancy.

Currently, 20 percent of S.C. adults smoke, which is in line with the national average but well above the national goal of reducing adult smoking rates to 12 percent by 2010.

Florence and Horry counties are two of 44 communities from across the country selected to take part in the Communities Putting Prevention to Work initiative.