Tobacco.org

Is `Cold Turkey` The Only Safe Way to Quit Smoking? 

There is little evidence that products like nicotine patches and gums, which help reduce a smoker's reliance on traditional tobacco products like cigarettes, actually reduce the risk of smoking-related disease, according to a new report. . .

The cautious tone of the researchers is due in part to the way lower-nicotine and lower-tar (or "light") cigarettes were decades ago first embraced as a way to reduce the levels of nicotine and harmful chemicals that smokers inhaled. . .

professor and chief of the cancer genetics and epidemiology program at the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. "We had basically a public health experiment where everyone from the surgeon general said, 'If you have to smoke, go to the low-tar nicotine' and we made a mistake once. So we're really scared about making the same mistake again." . .

So what is the best way to quit? For some people, a combination of different products and approaches is best, says Nate Cobb, lead developer of the QuitNet, a smoking cessation Web site (www.quitnet.org) run by Join Together, a project of the Boston University School of Public Health.

"What we do know is that absolutely, the patch, gum, and Zyban, or bupropion--they work," says Cobb.

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