A perspectives article from the April 1 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine has provoked a slowly growing controversy.
(1) Let me summarize the main points of the article before getting to the controversy.
As the title, "the case for treating tobacco dependence as a chronic disease," suggests, the authors argue "for some smokers, long-term pharmacotherapy [which] is the difference between tobacco abstinence and lifelong smoking," based on the argument that smoking is like a chronic disease.
