Smoking is one of the biggest public health problems currently facing the United States.  Consider the following:

• Tobacco related illnesses cause over 400,000 deaths each year; this accounts for two-thirds of all preventable deaths in the United States (more information is available at the CDC).  That total represents one out of every two smokers!

• Currently, over one million children and teens (between the ages of 12 and 17) become regular tobacco users each year, which accounts for over 85% of new smokers.  Currently, more girls start smoking each year than boys, using toacco as a means of controlling their weight (more information is available at the Office of National Drug Control Policy).

• Teenagers who smoke cite the depiction of smoking in movies (52%) and advertising (34%) at the top two reasons that they decided to start smoking (Dalton et al, 2003).  Peer pressure and parental influence were much less important.

• Smokers were not asked about their smoking during 85% of routine office visits with their primary care physicians; those same patients mistook this as approval of their smoking habit (“if the doctor isn’t worried about it, it must be okay”).

• Tobacco is NOT regulated by the Food and Drug Administration; as a result of this lack of oversight, The Harvard School of Public Health found that nicotine levels in cigarettes rose 11% between 1998-2005.  Such increases make it more difficult to treat those patients trying to overcome their nicotine addiction. 

The Quit Doc Research and Education Foundation has been started by a group of physicians who believe that they can find a better approach to patients that are addicted to nicotine, and prevent another generation of young Americans from being sucked in by the false promises of the tobacco industry.