Improving the treatment of tobacco dependence

Papers pp 323, 329 Clinical review p 355

Efforts to treat tobacco dependence are meant to supplement rather than to replace attempts to stop the tobacco industry's predatory recruitment of new smokers. Over 1.2 billion people worldwide regularly smoke tobacco products,1 not including the use of roll-your-owns or smokeless tobacco. Reductions in numbers of deaths caused by tobacco over the next 50 years will depend largely on the success of tobacco users in breaking or controlling their addiction. Only in the second half of this century will our progress, such as it is, towards reducing the uptake of smoking among young people manifestly affect mortality.2

Three articles in this issue show the importance of smoking cessation or discuss the growing repertoire of effective pharmacological and behavioural approaches for treating nicotine dependence.2^–4 Their publication coincides with the 11th world conference on tobacco or …