Hospital-based smoking cessation programs, along with referrals to cardiac rehabilitation, appear to be associated with increased rates of quitting smoking following heart attack, according to a report in the Oct. 13, 2008, issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Kicking the habit may soon become easier for the nation’s 45 million smokers. For the first time, researchers have identified patterns of genes that appear to influence how well individuals respond to specific smoking cessation treatments.

A new study from the American Cancer Society finds black and Hispanic smokers are less likely than whites to receive and use smoking cessation advice and aids. The study, published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, also finds men and those without a usual source of medical care were less likely to be screened for tobacco use and receive advice to quit.

OHSU Smoking Cessation Center researchers outline key steps for developing and implementing clinic-based systems to provide smoking cessation treatment tailored to smokers with respiratory disorders

Mark Twain boasted that it was easy to quit smoking because he did it every day. We now may have the beginnings of understanding why some people find it so difficult to stop smoking even when they are in treatment for this problem.

Whether a smoking-cessation drug will enable you to quit smoking may depend on your genes, according to new genotyping research from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The study, published in the September issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry, found that the enzyme known to metabolize both the smoking cessation drug bupropion and nicotine is highly genetically variable in all ethnicities and influences smoking cessation.

Scientists supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, have for the first time identified genes that might increase a person's ability to abstain from smoking.