Dr. Veronica Palmero-Gonzalez, Pulmonologist with South Miami Hospital, explains nicotine is highly addictive. “If patients are already smoking, they have a hard time quitting. There’s also a lot of pressure and advertisement in society that make people start smoking, which is one of the goals that we try, as physicians, to prevent.” Women’s risk of dying from smoking has more than tripled, and now is equal to men’s risk. She also says there is no difference between smoking in men and women, and points out lung cancer is the number one killer in both men and women.