"The combination of lives lost and the cost of treating smoking-related diseases makes our investment in smoking-cessation services imperative," said HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, whose department established the network. "By providing smoking-cessation resources to the 46 million adults in this country who smoke, we can make an enormous improvement in public health."

Under the plan, smokers nationwide will only need to remember one toll-free number to get help. States that already have quitlines will receive funding to enhance their services, such as expanding their hours of operation, hiring bilingual counselors, building referral links with local health-care systems, and promoting their quitlines.

States without quitlines would receive grants to establish them. Until they are implemented, telephone counselors with the HHS' National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Information Service will provide assistance to individuals in those states.

"The benefit of this network is that it provides a single access point for smokers so that every smoker can get the tools that he or she needs to stop smoking." said Thompson.

The national network of smoking cessation quitlines is complemented by an HHS website that contains quitline numbers for individual states, an online guide to quitting, instant messaging with a smoking-cessation expert, and downloadable cessation guides.

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