Cancer Trends Progress Report

Quitting smoking has major and immediate health benefits for people of all ages. Quitting smoking dramatically reduces the risk of lung and other cancers caused by smoking, coronary heart disease, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). For example, 10-15 years after quitting, the risk of lung cancer decreases to about one-half that of a person who continues to smoke; with continued abstinence from smoking, the risk of lung cancer decreases even further.

Although quitting smoking is beneficial at any age, the earlier in life a person quits, the more likely it is that they will avoid the devastating health effects of continued tobacco use. Few people who smoke quit successfully on their first attempt; most will require many attempts before they are able to permanently quit. This emphasizes the need for those who smoke to begin trying to quit as early in life as possible.

A number of strategies can increase the likelihood of successful smoking cessation. For example, comprehensive, barrier-free, and widely promoted access to insurance coverage for smoking cessation treatment increases treatment use and successful cessation. Treatments that support successful cessation include FDA approved smoking cessation medications and behavioral counseling; the combination of medication and counseling is especially effective. Behavioral counseling and support can be delivered using individual or group counseling, or by quitlines, web and internet, or text-messaging platforms. Cessation rates can also be improved by adopting population-level policies, such as tobacco product price increases, comprehensive smokefree policies, implementing anti-tobacco mass media campaigns, requiring pictorial health warnings on tobacco products, and maintaining comprehensive statewide tobacco control programs. 

Recently, the FDA announced a proposal to prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes and all characterizing flavors (other than tobacco) in cigars. These proposed rules have the potential to significantly reduce the death and disease caused by smoking by reducing youth use and experimentation, and by increasing the number of people that quit. In addition, the FDA also announced plans to develop a proposed product standard that would establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and some other combustible tobacco products. The goal of this proposed product standard would be to reduce youth use, addiction, and death.