Nicotine Addiction: Principles and Management

The identification of nicotine addiction as the engine of the global epidemic of tobacco use is a public health milestone. This authoritative text on tobacco dependence draws together the new understanding about nicotine addiction, ranging from the pharmacological and the clinical to the economic and the historical. By focusing on nicotine addiction as a primary disease, the authors move beyond seeing smoking as a bad habit or a risk factor for other illnesses. Seeing it as a primary disease roots the understanding and the treatment of nicotine addiction in the rapidly developing field of addiction to alcohol and other drugs. This approach also captures the intense professional and public priority now given to addiction. Labeling tobacco use an addiction defines the public policy debate about the supply of tobacco products and the public responses to tobacco use. The book is organized like a medical text, with part 1 dealing with