Smoking Cessation Policy

Executive Summary

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death for both men and women in the United States. Smokers have higher rates of peptic ulcer disease, are more susceptible to upper respiratory infections, and are more likely to develop cataracts than nonsmokers. The prevalence of cigarette smoking in the Saudi Arabia varied dramatically over the past century. The first nationally coordinated anti-smoking media campaign in the Saudi Arabia occurred between 1967 and early 1971. Anti-smoking activists successfully lobbied the Federal Communications Commission to apply the Fairness Doctrine to cigarette advertising, which required that broadcasters donate one free anti-smoking ad for every three cigarette commercials.

Recent evaluations of state and national anti-smoking campaigns provide further evidence that these efforts reduce youth smoking initiation and increase adult smoking cessation. Anti-smoking campaigns are often less effective in promoting smoking cessation among less educated smokers compared to smokers with more education. Less educated smokers face substantial barriers to sustained cessation, including lower access to treatment, more permissive workplace cultures and policies, lower social support for quitting, and more sources of stress in their social environment.

Smoking Cessation Policy

Introduction

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death for both men and women in the United States. It has been blamed for an estimated 419,000 deaths per year hi this country (or 1 in every 5 deaths) from cardiovascular disease (including heart attacks and sudden death), stroke, and cancers of the lung, mouth, larynx, esophagus, trachea, bladder, pancreas, and stomach. Smokers have higher rates of peptic ulcer disease, are more susceptible to upper respiratory infections, and are more likely to develop cataracts than nonsmokers.

Most of what we know about the ill effects of smoking is based on large-scale studies in men. But the evidence is becoming increasingly clear that a woman who smokes like a man can expect to get sick and die like a man. In fact, today women account for 39 percent of all smoking-related deaths, a proportion that has more than doubled since the mid-1960s. Since 1980, over 3 million women have died from smoking-related causes.

For the most part, awareness of health risks is not enough to motivate people to quit. Over 90 percent of current smokers know full well that smoking is harmful to health, and yet a vague fear of some future disease is not enough to keep them from smoking. What does seem to motivate many smokers to quit, however, is the development of a smoking-related symptom such as persistent cough, breathlessness, or chest pain in the smoker herself or in a close family member or friend. These symptoms may or may not be related to the cigarette smoking, but they often scare a smoker into seeing herself as personally vulnerable. Social pressure also plays a role in evoking the desire to quit.

Most smokers today say they would like to stop and have made at least one concerted attempt to do so. It often takes two or three serious efforts before this mission is ...