Why we can t ignore tobacco harm reduction

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More than two-thirds of American smokers want to quit, but only a fraction actually do, underscoring a need for more services, messages, and access to medications to help them kick the habit, writes Betsy McKay of The Wall Street Journal. McKay s brief article recaps this week s report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has found that, of the nearly 69 percent of adult smokers who wanted to quit in 2010, more than half tried but only 6.2 percent succeeded. Unfortunately, while McKay s article reminds Journal readers of the need for more effective approaches to smoking cessation in the U.S., it fails to acknowledge the importance of harm reduction in helping the most addicted contingent of smokers.

To explore what efforts are being made, as well as what still needs to be done, McKay spoke with Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC s Office on Smoking and Health. Dr. McAfee spoke encouragingly about the increasing number of young adults who want to quit, as well as recent provisions by Medicaid for coverage of smoking cessation medicines and counseling. But as ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross points out, these efforts just aren t effective. Dr. McAfee is so happy with the percentage of smokers who want to quit that he s ignoring the unacceptably low success rate of conventional cessation aids, Dr. Ross observes.

While we were very glad to see a New York Times column earlier this week that looked objectively at the benefits of electronic cigarettes for smokers who can t rid themselves of the habit, this Journal article illustrates how difficult it is to get the message out about harm reduction. Both McKay and Dr. McAfee are neglecting the much more effective option of modified risk products, says Dr. Ross. While e-cigarettes show some promise in clinical studies thus far, the benefits of smokeless tobacco products like snus have already greatly reduced the number of smokers and smoking-related diseases in countries that permit and promote their use as a cessation aid.

We can only hope that McKay s report of the dismal success rate of smokers who try to quit will spur more than one reader to re-evaluate the largely ineffective public efforts on behalf of those addicted to cigarettes.