HELENA - In the mornings, Mike Spence reached over his nightstand to shut off his alarm clock and grab a cigarette. He smoked one before his feet ever hit the floor.

On all his shift breaks, he smoked some more. And the last thing he did before going to sleep at night was light up one last time.

Before he quit at age 38, Spence of Helena was smoking four packs of cigarettes a day.

"The only time I didn't smoke was when I was in the operating room," Spence, a doctor, said at a press conference Monday to launch Montana's new, toll-free tobacco quit line.

Spence, now 64, is the chief medical officer for the state Department of Public Health and Human Services. He quit smoking long before telephone quit lines came into fashion. But he said the state's new toll-free number will be "a boon" to the 21 percent of Montanans who smoke.

"Quitting is next to impossible for many," Spence said.

The new number, which was operational Monday, offers counseling as well as relapse services to any Montana tobacco user who calls. At a cost of $1.2 million over the next 16 months, the toll-free number will be up and running 85 hours a week, 363 days a year.

The state of Montana has run a quit line before, but it was canceled 10 months after its August 2000 launch. Georgiana Gulden of the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program said many state programs were cut during 2001's budget crisis.

Funding for the quit line comes from the $26 million annual tobacco settlement payment the state receives each year from tobacco companies. The line is operated by the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, which also runs lines in Colorado and Ohio.

When tobacco users call the line, they can talk to trained counselors. Callers can opt to receive information for a self-guided program, or enroll in a counseling program. The counseling program consists of five calls from the quit line staff.

Line staff will also send out information packets tailored to each caller, and will give a six-week course of nicotine gum or patches free of charge to qualified callers.

Studies show that tobacco users who quit through a quit line are successful 28 percent of the time, as opposed to a success rate of less than 5 percent for those who quit on their own, said Cindy Haugland of the National Jewish Medical Center.

Currently, 23 percent of adults nationwide smoke cigarettes while 21 percent of Montanans smoke. Across the nation, another 3.6 percent of adults use smokeless tobacco while 6 percent of Montanans do.

Some 142,000 Montanans have a tobacco habit.

"Research shows 70 percent to 80 percent of smokers and chewers want to quit," Gulden said. "Instead of simply telling them to quit, we're offering the tobacco quit line to help them kick the habit, step by step."