The Cancer Patch

A new program to help smokers quit. The central part is based around smokers being paired with cancer patients in hospitals (cigarette cancers generally: throat, lung, etc...) and have them help keep patients comfortable/happy. Normal applications (like the patch, pills, therapy) will also be used.

In addition to the chemical dependencies that a smoker faces, there are social dependencies. The marginal cost of giving up the chemical can be abated by the patch, or other scientific means. Which is partly what this program does, but is niether the original nor interesting part.

The problem is that the social benefit of quitting is not great enough (although recently, cigarette smokers have been crucified by the media, and pestered into corners more and more often.) In order to increase this disincentive (reverse incentive) the smokers would need see that cancer is no fun, and trust me, no one is more miserable (or persuasive) than a lung cancer patient.

Hopefully at this point the smoker has seen enough and the marginal benefit of quitting becomes too great due to the disincentive that cancer presents.