It’s unclear how much reducing the amount you smoke will reduce the risk of a smoking-related disease, but cutting back does affect how easy it is to quit later, Hughes said.

And while many people believe that only smoking a few cigarettes a day won’t affect their health, this is incorrect, said Hughes. The health risk “seems to be much greater with first few cigarettes that you smoke,” he said.

Some health care providers worry that if smokers start using nicotine replacement products, it will undermine their motivation to quit entirely, Hughes said.

Instead, he said, the important thing is for people to eventually arrive at a point where they can quit - however they get there.

We “don’t have to be so rigid that everybody has to do it cold turkey or abruptly,” he said.

SOURCE:  Addiction, online January 13, 2011.

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