WASHINGTON — Of the roughly 15 million Americans who tried to quit smoking in 2022, 5 in 6 failed. It’s a jarring statistic — and an indictment of the treatment options for an addiction that kills 480,000 people in the U.S. each year.
The smoking-cessation drugs on the market don’t work well for the majority of people, and they come with side effects and reputations that keep some smokers from ever trying them. Despite this, there hasn’t been a new class of drug approved for the condition in nearly two decades.
It’s a situation that in most other areas of medicine would be unacceptable, argued Nora Volkow, the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We should not be passive about it. We’re not passive about any other condition,” she told STAT. “Look at HIV, how many antiretrovirals do we have? Look at Covid, how many vaccines do we have?”
