Tobacco.org

• 'Quitting Isn't That Easy' 

The following open letter to Senator Barack Obama was published in Sunday's Chicago Tribune. . . .

Dear Sen. Obama,

I viewed with great interest your recent comments about your struggle to quit smoking. As a professor of medicine with a long-term research program focused on tobacco use and its consequences, I strongly believe that your discomfort is entirely unnecessary; your dependency on cigarettes can readily be resolved. . . .

Statistically, smokeless users have about the same risk of dying from mouth cancer as automobile users have of dying in a car wreck.

In fact, switching from cigarettes to smokeless provides almost all of the health benefits of complete tobacco abstinence.

Substituting satisfying and vastly safer sources of nicotine for cigarettes is called "tobacco harm reduction." . . .

Senator, your genuine desire to quit tobacco altogether is commendable.

But if you find this goal unachievable, like millions of inveterate smokers, I urge you to switch to smokeless tobacco for your physical and emotional well-being. In doing so, you can provide inspiration for American smokers, and you can effect a profound positive change in the nation's public health. Yes, you can.

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