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Ray Davis, 52, has been smoking for 35 years. He's tried quitting several times. He's tried the nicotine patches. He's tried chewing instead of smoking. He's tried sucking lemon drops. He's tried sucking cinnamon sticks. None of it worked. But Thursday, Davis says, is the day he finally quits for good.

Peninsula Smokefree Partnership members will be at the Central Peninsula Hospital today handing out "adopt-a-smoker survival bags" to anyone hoping to help themselves or a loved one kick the addictive and often deadly habit.

The event is in preparation for the American Cancer Society's 34th annual Great American Smoke Out, which encourages smokers nationwide to boycott tobacco every third Thursday in November with the hope that it will be motivation to permanently stop smoking.

"It's just an encouragement to go 24 hours without a cigarette and hopefully longer," project and grant coordinator Jennifer Olendorff said.

Davis is taking the hint.

"I'm quitting because this is the national day to quit and I have been putting it off for a while," Davis said. "For some stupid reason I think I actually enjoy cigarettes. But I don't enjoy emphysema. I don't enjoy shortness of breath."

Like Davis, the majority of Alaskan adults who currently smoke would like to quit, according to a September 2009 state report. The report says that three out of five adult smokers have tried to quit within the year.

Smokefree partnership education coordinator Susan Pfaffe said the group distributed more than 300 quit kits during last year's smoke out festivities, and she expects the group to do the same this year. The adoption kits allow family members and friends to essentially sponsor the person trying to quit and therefore become even more invested in the process, Pfaffe said.

"The adoption papers are a loving way for somebody that you care about to say 'I'd like to see you quit,'" Pfaffe said.

The kits include everything the smoker will need to survive a day, and possibly longer, without cigarettes. They come stocked with: a water bottle, stress ball, information on Alaska's Tobacco Quitline (888-842-7848), nicotine patches, a lollipop and other pieces of information about the harms of smoking.

The stress ball and lollipop give the smoker something to concentrate on during cravings.

As for the water bottle: "You need to be drinking lots of water to flush the toxins out of your body," Pfaffe said.

Those "toxins," which include ammonia, tar and many other potentially dangerous substances found in cigarettes, have been linked to many serious side effects.

The 2009 state report says tobacco use cost Alaskans an estimated $314 million in direct medical expenditures in 2007. It also said 120 Alaskans die every year from secondhand smoke.

"Tobacco is the No. 1 killer in the U.S," Olendorff said. "If we can get people to quit with the smoke out, it will thereby reduce the number of deaths caused by cigarettes."

While the hospital was glad to serve as a venue for the kit dispersal, it does not have an official relationship with the smokefree partnership or the 2009 smoke out, hospital spokeswoman Bonnie Nichols said.

"We'd love people to be smoke free," Nichols said. "They (smokefree partnership) asked if they could hand out fliers, and we were happy to let them do that."

The Peninsula Smokefree Partnership is a tobacco prevention and control grant funded by the state. It is filtered through the Tobacco Prevention and Control program within the Department of Health & Social Services under Bridges' Community Resource Network, according to its Web site.

Andrew Waite can be reached at news@peninsulaclarion.com