Quit Smoking Weapons of Mass Distraction

For decades, there have been far more ex-smokers than smokers—an estimated 75% quit without any drugs or professional help. However, smoking cessation has become a mass global phenomenon serviced by multibillion-dollar industries, including the pharmaceutical and e-cigarette industries, as well as health professionals. These entities attempt to denigrate unassisted cessation while promoting their products and services as essential to successful quitting.

This discourse promotes smoking cessation as weapons of mass distraction and involves the medicalisation of a process that, before these products were available, had a natural history where drugs and expertise were absent. Nevertheless, many millions have quit around the world. Quit Smoking Weapons of Mass Distraction reviews the early history of quitting smoking, the rise of assisted quitting, and the forces that have tried to undermine smokers’ agency to stop.