The SmokeFree Formula

I am a psychologist and have been researching how to help smokers to stop for more than 30 years. I lead a team of researchers at University College London funded by Cancer Research UK with contributions from the Medical Research Council, Department of Health, and drug companies that develop and manufacture stop smoking medicines and nicotine products.

I am Editor of the scientific journal, Addiction. I advise governments on policy, and I helped to set up the NHS Stop Smoking Services.

If you want to know more, please visit www.rjwest.co.uk.

I could not have written this book without help. My son, Jamie West (www.jamiewest.net) is a musician and English graduate. He writes beautiful lyrics and tunes. He and I worked closely together to thrash out the ideas; he did the interviews with smokers that appear in the book and helped to craft the prose. 

We were very fortunate in being able to bring in Chris Smyth, the Times Health Correspondent, and he has been very helpful in sharpening the writing and putting a mirror up against the ideas to see whether or not they work.

Matthew West, a talented artist who makes his living as a graphic designer, was kind enough to do the illustrations and he and my other son, Daniel West (a skillful and creative programmer), have developed this website. 

Please don't imagine for a minute that I am anti-smoker. Quite the opposite - I am an ex-smoker and my research is devoted to helping you get free of cigarettes - if that's what you want.

But I am anti tobacco industry - an industry that exploits a 'loophole' in the human brain to make billions of pounds at the expense of its customers, their families and wider society.