The Quit Coach, Dr. Jim Morris, Director of the Nicotine Dependence Centre at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC), along with a handful of regional recipients, was honoured last week with the Heather Crowe Award at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, presented by Jim Watson, Minister of Health Promotion, and Michael Gravelle, MPP, Thunder Bay-Superior North.

Dr. Morris has had a sustained volunteer interest in tobacco control in Northwestern Ontario for more than twenty years. During this time he has contributed his time and expertise to building a tobacco-free community. It is with characteristic modesty that Jim describes his efforts as like that of the Energizer Bunny™ – he just keeps on going.

Jim was a member of the 1986 Smoke-Free Committee that worked to create the first Smoke-Free By-Law, unsuccessful the first time around due to unstructured implementation by the municipality. He has served on a number of boards, including the Heart and Stroke Board, as both an executive member and Chair, the Ontario Tobacco Free Network, and as the Chair of Tobacco Free Thunder Bay, a coalition of health agencies and volunteers (an eight year process of community mobilization and education), which was successful in 2003 in mobilizing the community to vote for a smoke-free Thunder Bay.

His education and teaching initiatives are equally diverse, from collaborations on tobacco cessation programs with the University of Arizona and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, NY, to organizing high school peer-to-peer initiatives educating students on the harm of tobacco use, to modifying his own program of ‘training the trainer’, the ‘Brief Intervention Cessation Counsellor’ (BICC) program, held across Northwestern Ontario.

In 2001, under the auspices of the Northwestern Regional Cancer Centre (NWORCC), Jim opened the first Nicotine Dependence Centre in Ontario, and became the Quit Coach, helping smokers identify their nicotine addiction and set a ‘quit date’ under his guidance and coaching. Now affiliated with TBRHSC-Regional Cancer Care in the Supportive Care program, to date, Jim has helped hundreds of people in Northwestern Ontario, and continues his tireless crusade to help smokers kick their habit.

Heather Crowe, for whom this award is named, was a waitress for 40 years in smoke-filled workplaces. Although she has never smoked, she developed lung cancer from second-hand smoke, and has since been a tireless advocate to promote smoke free workplaces. She has traveled all over Canada driving a Health Canada campaign on the importance of smoke free workplaces and occupational health and safety.

The Heather Crowe Award was established to recognise individuals and organizations that demonstrate leadership in the area of tobacco control in their communities.

For more information, or to have Jim come and talk to your organization about quitting smoking, please call 684-7311, or email morrisj@tbh.net.

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