Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence

Fact Sheet

1. Recent surveys show that 25 percent of all American adults smoke.
2. More than 430,000 deaths in the United States each year are attributable to tobacco use, making tobacco the No. 1 cause of death and disease in this country.
3. Smoking prevalence among adolescents has risen dramatically since 1990, with more than 3,000 additional children and adolescents becoming regular users of tobacco each day.
4. Nationwide, medical care costs attributable to smoking (or smoking-related disease) have been estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be more than $50 billion annually. In addition, they estimate the value of lost earnings and loss of productivity to be at least another $47 billion a year.
5. It would cost an estimated $6.3 billion annually to provide 75 percent of smokers 18 years and older with the intervention—counseling, nicotine patches, nicotine gum, or a combination—of their choice. This would result in 1.7 million new quitters at an average cost of $3,779 per quitter—a move that would be cost-effective in relation to other medical interventions such as mammography or blood pressure screening.
6. Epidemiologic data suggest that more than 70 percent of the 50 million smokers in the United States today have made at least one prior quit attempt, and approximately 46 percent try to quit each year. Most smokers make several quit attempts before they successfully kick the habit.
7. Only 21 percent of practicing physicians say that they have received adequate training to help their patients stop smoking, according to a recent survey of U.S. medical school deans published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The majority of medical schools do not require clinical training in smoking cessation techniques. It is hoped that this guideline will serve as a call to action.