Unfortunately, harm reduction approaches have yet to be widely accepted for those addicted to cigarettes. A new study by the American Cancer Society illustrates the depth of this addiction and the difficulty some smokers face even when a diagnosis of cancer makes it imperative that they quit. One woman, a smoker whose cancerous lung was removed, explained in an MSNBC interview the draw of cigarettes despite the litany of cessation methods she tried. We can’t help but think that tobacco harm reduction products could have been a great help to this woman, as well as to many people like her.
The new study, published in the journal Cancer, looked at nearly 2,500 lung cancer patients; at the time of diagnosis, 38 percent of the lung cancer patients were still smoking. Five months later, 14 percent of the lung cancer patients continued to smoke. While quitting smoking has the potential to improve these patients’ prognosis, it’s clearly still a terribly difficult task for many of them.
Authors of the study, which was led by a clinical health psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, would like to see more cessation programs and treatment options for patients who are smoking at the time of their diagnosis. (Given that active smoking is responsible for 90 percent of lung cancer cases, this is a sizable patient population.) But given the frustratingly low success rates of conventional cessation products, tobacco harm reduction could be crucial here.
“Wouldn’t it be nice,” ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan asks, “if these patients had a spectrum of smokeless products, which are both effective and at least 90 percent less harmful than cigarettes, to choose from?” ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross agrees. “It’s absurd that we’re recognizing the benefits of harm reduction for IV drug addicts, but we won’t acknowledge how much it would help people who can’t quit smoking even after a cancer diagnosis.”
