Smoke signals: Cash, not electronic cigarettes, help get smokers to quit

When it comes to helping smokers quit, financial rewards are much more effective than electronic cigarettes.

But the sad truth is that nothing works all that well, according to the results of a large clinical trial that tested five smoking-cessation strategies in real-world conditions.

Out of 6,006 smokers who enrolled in the trial, only 80 could provide biochemical evidence that they were smoke-free six months after their quit dates. That's a success rate of just 1.3 percent.

Even if you count only the 1,191 people who put some visible effort into trying to