Helping patients to quit smoking.

Years ago, the tobacco leaf offered its users many social and ceremonial benefits. But today, throughout the world, the manufactured cigarette wreaks biological havoc. Clinically, physicians can make a small, but significant, contribution to their patients' stopping smoking. Family physicians who want to offer systematic aid to their smoking patients should assess the amount of time and energy they are willing to invest in patients' smoking and the probable rewards of such efforts. Behavioural change comprises four stages: a pre-motivational phase, a motivational phase, a behavioural-change phase, and a maintenance phase. Anyone who has ever smoked belongs to one of these phases and should be treated accordingly. Paradoxically, the physician should support consonant smoking (the patient freely choosing to smoke) except when the smoker is actively engaged in changing behaviour.