Methods, successes, and failures of smoking cessation programs

Addictive and conditioning processes interact to make cigarette smoking a common, lethal behavior that is highly resistant to change. In addition to addiction and conditioning, smoking is maintained by a wide range of forces, ranging from social modeling and advertising to the politics and economics of international trade. Parallel to this wide range of causes of smoking, interventions to encourage smoking cessation range from simple information and suggestions to smoking cessation classes, to nicotine replacement, to community or national campaigns that promote nonsmoking. Clinicians can make contributions throughout this range of activities, from the consulting room to political advocacy. While no one of these is highly successful on its own, together they have prompted almost 50% of smokers to quit, an impressive accomplishment.