Director's Corner
Collateral Damage: COVID-19 Stalls Progress on Smoking Cessation
March 23, 2021
A hidden but potentially disastrous consequence of the COVID-19 epidemic is its effect on smoking. Although the 2020 data on smoking prevalence have yet to be released, there is disturbing evidence that the impressive recent declines in adult and youth smoking may have stalled...
Moving Forward In Spite Of It All
October 29, 2020
Like everyone else, the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at UCSF has had to adapt to new ways of doing our work. Working remotely has brought its set of challenges, and we were concerned that the press of attending to the Covid-19 epidemic would sideline smoking cessation...
Smoking, Covid-19, and Racism —Three Intersecting Epidemics
June 26, 2020
These are strange and disturbing times, as each of us confronts fundamental issues about health and our society. The three epidemics vary in how long they have been with us, how they cause harm, and how they could be remediated. The harms from smoking date back over one hundred...
Director’s Corner Update - The Connection Between Smoking and the Coronavirus
April 10, 2020
As the nation wrestles with the coronavirus epidemic, it has become clear that there is a connection between smoking and the epidemic. It manifests in at least six ways.First, those whose lungs have been damaged by smoking are more vulnerable to the serious lung complications of...
Reflections on the Pandemic
March 12, 2020
Just as it looked like we had recovered from the EVALI epidemic, along comes the novel Coronavirus, which is probably the biggest social disrupter in my lifetime since World War II, and probably the most domestically threatening since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. We have all...
Director’s Corner on 2020 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking Cessation
February 03, 2020
The Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking Cessation is a typically massive (700 pages) and evidence-based document with multiple authors and reviewers. The first such report since 1990, it is a valuable compendium of the history, current status, controversies and challenges of...
2020 Director's Corner: Top 20 Successes and Challenges for Smoking Cessation
December 30, 2019
As an inveterate list maker, I can’t resist the opportunity to usher in the year 2020 with a list about smoking cessation. Below I enumerate my nominees for the top 20 successes that have helped promote smoking cessation, as well as the top 20 challenges facing smoking cessation...
The SCLC Looks for a New Director
August 20, 2019
When the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at UCSF began in January, 2003, it was founded on an unproven assumption: that there was a need to assist clinicians and other groups to improve the practice of smoking cessation. Created with a five-year grant from the Robert Wood...
Father’s Day, Smoking Cessation and Retail Sales of Tobacco Products
May 31, 2019
When asked why I care so much about smoking cessation, I can’t relate any stories of family tragedies. Rather, my motivation comes from the fact that smoking exerts such a huge toll on health, and also that I lost many patients from smoking-induced diseases. But, like many of my...
Declines in Smoking Prompt Health Groups to Set Ambitious New Goal
January 28, 2019
New target is to reduce smoking among adults with mental illnesses/substance use to 20% by 2022 A group of two dozen health groups and leaders in behavioral health and tobacco control has set an ambitious new goal to reduce smoking among persons with behavioral health issues,...
