Despite our best efforts, every year 480,000 Americans continue to die from smoking. And, for the majority of our citizens, including healthcare professionals and policymakers, the solution to this problem is singular: Tell people to quit smoking.

To wit, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion issued recommendations to achieve its goal of shrinking tobacco-use numbers from 20 percent in 2008 to 12 percent by 2020. The recommendations consist almost exclusively of abstinence-only interventions: anti-tobacco public health campaigns, Medicaid coverage for quit-aids, quitting incentive programs, and increased capacity for smoking quitlines.