A Study of Novel Smoking Cessation Interventions in Current and Former Injection Drug Users

Cigarette smoking is very common in current and former injection drug users and is known to cause chronic lung diseases. Quitting smoking is proven to improve the health of people addicted to cigarettes. . Little information exists regarding the perceptions and characteristics of drug users regarding quitting smoking. Additionally, most programs designed to help people quit smoking are not very successful. One reason these programs may not work well is because it is difficult to motivate people to quit smoking. New methods of motivating changes in behavior include small monetary payments for healthy behavior and reporting breathing tests with the concept of "lung age," which is the age of an average healthy person with similar breathing test results. For example, a health care provider can report results as "Although you are 50 years old, you have the lungs for a 70 year old". In this proposal, the investigators plan to first explore the beliefs and characteristics of current and former injection drug users and how they are related to quitting smoking. The investigators then plan to study whether the use of two new methods of motivation increases the chances that this group will stop smoking.