A National Action Plan for Tobacco Cessation:
Primary Recommendations

• Establish a federally funded National Tobacco quitline network that will provide universal access to evidence-based counseling and medications for tobacco cessation through a national portal to available state or regionally-managed quitlines.
• Launch an ongoing, extensive paid media campaign to help Americans quit using tobacco.
• Include evidence-based counseling and medications for tobacco cessation in benefits provided to all federal beneficiaries and in all federally funded healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. (100 million Americans)
• Invest in a new, broad and balanced research agenda with two primary goals—improve the successful cessation rate to above 50 percent and eliminate the disparities in tobacco use.
• Invest in training and education for healthcare providers. Ensure that all clinicians in the United States have the knowledge, skills and support systems necessary to help their patients quit tobacco use.
• Establish a Smokers’ Health Fund by increasing the Federal Excise Tax on cigarettes by $2.00 per pack with a similar increase in the excise tax on other tobacco products. At least 50 percent of the new revenue generated by this tax increase (at least $14 billion of the estimated $28 billion generated) should be earmarked to pay for the components of this action plan.

  The Cessation Subcommittee’s Work

  Primary Recommendations of the National Action Plan

  Fact Sheet (Word document)

  A National Action Plan for Tobacco Cessation (Entire document -- PDF)

• Research by the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center
• University of Wisconsin Measures and Scales
• Tobacco and Healthcare Policy Research
• Clinical Trials: New Medication
• Additional UW-CTRI Research
• Links to Other Research Web Sites