The Seven FDA-Approved Medicines to Help You Quit Smoking

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved seven medicines to help adults quit cigarettes. They work in different ways, and all have been shown to be safe and effective for adults who smoke.

The seven medicines

Nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs):

1. the nicotine patch
2. nicotine lozenges
3. nicotine gum
4. the nicotine oral inhaler
5. nicotine nasal spray

Pills:

6. varenicline
7. bupropion SR

Some people combine medicines — typically the patch plus one other NRT. Other strategies, such as coaching, can help with or without medicine.

CDC publishes step-by-step guides for using each option — the patch, lozenge, gum, oral inhaler and nasal spray; combining medicines; varenicline and bupropion SR — as well as for getting coaching alongside medicine and for quitting without medicine.

Check with a doctor first if…

• you are pregnant or breastfeeding;
• you are younger than 18;
• you use tobacco other than cigarettes — cigars, chew, snuff, hookah or e-cigarettes. Talk to a health care provider or call a quitline for help quitting those.

The ways of using these medicines described by CDC are reviewed in Smoking Cessation: A Report of the Surgeon General; some have not been evaluated or approved by the FDA.

Free help to quit

By phone:

• 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669)
• 1-855-DÉJELO-YA (1-855-335-3569), in Spanish
• 1-800-838-8917, in Chinese
• 1-800-556-5564, in Korean
• 1-800-778-8440, in Vietnamese

By text or app:

• Text QUITNOW to 333888 (message and data rates may apply).
• CDC's quitSTART app offers tips, information and challenges.

Online: CDC's Quit Smoking pages, Smokefree.gov (both also in Spanish) and the Asian Smokers' Quitline.

Sources

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tips From Former Smokers: "Quit Smoking Medicines"; a work of the United States government in the public domain.