While the number of people who smoke has declined over the years—and many young people are turning to e-cigarettes rather than starting cigarette smoking—“we still have a lot of people with a very long history of cigarette smoking, who, despite all tobacco public health efforts, are not able to stop,” says Lisa Fucito, PhD, director of the Tobacco Treatment Service at Smilow Cancer Hospital.

About 70% of the country’s 31 million adult smokers say they would rather not smoke; each year, more than half of them try to quit, according to government statistics, but only 7.5% of those actually give up smoking.