Are todays smokers more addicted than smokers of the past?
Although today there are fewer smokers it is more difficult for them to quit smoking.
The authors suggest that current policies to reduce smoking — like heavy tobacco taxes and bans on public smoking— might not work as well as they have in the past, because they tend to treat smoking as a choice rather than an addiction. These public-health efforts “may be effective in prodding social smokers with genetic resilience to quit, but may do less to help genetically vulnerable smokers quit,” said Pampel. The research team recommended emphasizing therapeutic quit-smoking approaches instead, like nicotine-replacement therapy and counseling.
