Experts Release New Guidelines to Help People Quit Smoking
June 27, 2000 -- "It's easy to quit smoking; I've done it a thousand times. ..."
That old saw applies to millions of smokers, including Claudia MacAuley, manager of the animal facility at the Baltimore VA Medical Center. "I guess I started smoking when I was about 14 years old," she tells WebMD. "When I was 22, I quit cold turkey, and that lasted about four years. Then I started again, and I've been smoking on and off since. I'd like to quit, but right now it would just be too stressful"
Guidelines published in the Journal of the American Medical Association say most smokers are like MacAuley: 70% of them say they'd like to quit, and 46% try to quit each year.
"What these guidelines do is provide hope," Michael Fiore, MD, MPH, tells WebMD. "They also provide practical advice on how to quit." Fiore is director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. He also chairs the Tobacco Use and Dependence Clinical Practice Guidelines Panel, which produced the guidelines in cooperation with other government agencies and researchers.
Only about two-thirds of people are asked during doctor visits whether they use tobacco, Fiore says. And even when they identify themselves as tobacco users, only 20% get counseling and/or medications to help them quit.
The guidelines say primary care doctors should become involved in their patients' efforts to quit smoking. "The issue of smoking status should be addressed with every patient, just as we take a blood pressure," Fiore says. "Once someone's smoking status has been determined, we need to advise our patients to quit, ask if they are willing to try, and assist them in their efforts to do so. Then we need to arrange for follow-up to help them avoid relapse."
Counseling and medications -- both prescription and over-the-counter -- are effective ways to help people quit smoking, the guidelines say. "All smokers who are making a quit attempt should receive some type of medicine, unless they fall into a special group, such as those who smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes per day or are pregnant," Fiore says.