In a guideline issued by the U.S. Public Health Service, clinicians and other health care providers are urged to make treating tobacco dependence a top priority. Of the 25% of adults in the U.S. who smoke, it is estimated that 70% would like to quit. Those with the support of their healthcare provider have the most success. Smoking is the single most preventable cause of illness and premature death in the U.S.

According to Michael C. Fiore, M.D., MPH, Chair of the guideline panel and Director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison,

"Anyone who uses tobacco and is committed to quitting needs to know that tobacco dependence is a chronic disease that, like high blood pressure or diabetes, frequently requires treatment over time to get it controlled."

Compared to other disease prevention programs, tobacco-dependence treatments which may include telephone counseling and drug therapy, are both clinically-effective and cost-effective.

Health care insurers and purchasers are encouraged to include as a covered benefit, the counseling and drug treatments identified as effective in the guideline and to pay clinicians for providing tobacco dependence treatment, just as they do for other chronic conditions.

For more information on this guideline see:
New Public Health Service Guideline Calls on Health Professionals to Make Treating Tobacco Dependence a Top Priority. Press Release, June 27, 2000. Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/tobacco