Cigarette abandonment: its significance

Two hundred and eight interviews with ex-cigarette-smokers in the street and 208 interviews with ex-cigarette-smoker chest patients, all over 45 years of age, gave a composite picture of people commonly smoking until their health is affected. Symptoms were much more important then tobacco tax or propaganda in stopping cigarette-smoking. Of continuing smokers 16% wished that they could stop because of symptoms. Fear of the presence of cigarette-induced disease was thought to explain why some patients gave unconvincing reasons for abandoning cigarettes or had become ex-smokers in the year preceding their examination and many of these had carcinoma of the bronchus. Cigarette abandonment should be accepted as part of the symptomatology of respiratory disease. It sometimes is the first identifiable event in the relevant medical history of chest patients.