Smoking cessation during substance abuse treatment: What you need to know.

Patients in substance abuse treatment frequently smoke cigarettes and often die of tobacco-related causes. Substance abuse treatment programs too often ignore tobacco use. Many patients have expressed interest in stopping smoking, although they may be ambivalent about smoking cessation during substance abuse treatment.

This article, the concept for which originated from a National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) workshop, provides a review of tobacco cessation literature and successful methods of intervention. Research supports two key findings: (a) smoking cessation during substance abuse treatment does not impair outcome of the presenting substance abuse problem and (b) smoking cessation may actually enhance outcome success. The authors discuss how to incorporate smoking cessation, and mention briefly the results of a survey of nicotine dependence services offered at community treatment programs in the CTN (as part of CTN-0008, “Assessment of the National Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network: A Baseline for Investigating Diffusion of Innovation”).