About the Blog Author-John R. Hughes, MD

John R. Hughes, MD is Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Family Practice at the University of Vermont. Dr. Hughes is board certified in Psychiatry and Addiction Psychiatry. His major focus has been clinical research on tobacco use. Dr. Hughes received the Ove Ferno Award for research in nicotine dependence and the Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Health. He is a co-founder and past president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, and the Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence. Dr. Hughes has been Chair of the Vermont Tobacco Evaluation and Review Board which oversees VT’s multi-million dollar tobacco control programs. He has over 400 publications on nicotine and other drug dependencies and is one of the world’s most cited tobacco scientist. Dr. Hughes has been a consultant on tobacco policy to the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the White House. His current research is on how tobacco users and marijuana users stop or reduce use on their own, novel methods to prompt quit attempts by such users, whether smoking cessation reduces reward sensitivity and whether stopping e-cigarettes causes withdrawal. Dr Hughes has received fees from companies who develop smoking cessation devices, medications and services, from governmental and academic institutions, and from public and private organizations that promote tobacco control.

News

  • Another New Behavioral Treatment for Tobacco Dependence

    For many years there was a dearth of research on new behavioral treatments for tobacco dependence, but recently we have had several; e.g., Mindfulness therapy (MT), Acceptance/Commitment Therapy (ACT), Behavioral Activation Therapy (BAT) , Positive Psychotherapy(PP) and Contingency Management (CM). One other possible new treatment that has yet to be formally tested is manipulating behavioral substitutes and complements‐two constructs developed from Behavioral Economics Theory. Substitutes....
  • Do Specialists Obtain Higher Quit Rates and, If So, Why

    A recent article (McDermott et al, Nicotine and Tobacco Research , advance publication) briefly reviewed four studies that found tobacco treatment specialists were associated with higher quit rates than non-specialists. Unfortunately, these were not randomized trials, but observational findings and thus the differences in specialist vs nonspecialist outcomes could be due to other factors (e.g. client characteristics). Nevertheless, this is important observational evidence to justify allocating extra resources to intensive treatment programs. Now if we could just obtain some empirical data to let us a priori know which smoker...