BOSTON -- A state Public Health Department study shows that smoking rates among low-income Massachusetts residents who participated in a state program to treat tobacco addiction dropped dramatically.

The study scheduled for release Wednesday found that smoking rates among the poor fell 26 percent in the first two years of the program, which targets a population that historically had the highest smoking rates.

The Boston Globe reports that the study found that once patients began receiving counseling and medications to help with their tobacco habits, they made fewer trips to the emergency room and there was a trend toward fewer life-threatening heart attacks.

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, called the study's findings "extraordinary."

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