I'd like to live in a city where no child considers even trying tobacco--not even once.

It's evident now that addiction can occur on the first use of nicotine; regardless, it occurs very, very quickly. There is no treatment that works for the most addicted. Chantix is very unsafe. The only way to keep our children from addiction is to convince them that nicotine decides for itself who becomes addicted; that addicts are people who lose their ability to "not think about smoking."

I don't know how to promote this. But I do not believe that current warnings prevent children from becoming addicted to nicotine. If the warnings worked, no child would be an addict, right? City of Hope would be half the size. (I was a patient there for a smoking-related cancer. I had become addicted at age 15 and smoked for 7 years. The cancer arrived 35 years later.)

Let's try talking about addiction, and make it clear that although some people can quit their addictions to nicotine, most cannot. The CDC has these data.