Joel Spitzer has been a leading authority in the development and implementation of smoking cessation and prevention programs for over 30 years. Far from just following and teaching the commonly held beliefs of the day, he has been a visionary who recognized early on that nicotine was an addiction while the rest of the medical and scientific community contended it was simply a habit. His unique insight allowed him to develop and implement nicotine prevention and intervention strategies that were decades ahead of their time. Participants in his clinics have success in quitting at rates that far exceed the national average for such programs.

Mr. Spitzer has been providing smoking cessation and prevention services since 1972, first as a volunteer speaker and then a member of the professional staff of the American Cancer Society, and later as the smoking programs coordinator for the Rush North Shore Medical Center’s Good Health Program.

He has conducted over 325 six-session stop smoking clinics to over 4,500 participants, including programs for major corporations, medium and small sized companies, universities, health departments and numerous hospitals in the Metropolitan Chicago area.

Besides smoking cessation clinics, he has developed and presented smoking education seminars to both adult and school age groups. Since 1972, he has presented over 570 one-session seminars to over 92,000 people. He has been a main speaker on the physical, psychological, and social aspects of smoking at over 30 major conferences on smoking and health throughout Illinois. He has trained physician and lay speakers for the American Cancer Society. He has done many radio, television, newspaper and magazine interviews. He has written over 100 articles used as part of the follow-up reinforcement for participants of his Stop Smoking Clinics.

He has been involved in other aspects of health promotion. He has done public speaking on lifestyle and fitness, weight control, drug abuse, cancer prevention and cancer early diagnosis. He personally designed and produced most of the audio-visual materials used in conjunction with these programs.

In September of 2000 he established Joel Spitzer, Ltd., where he is working as a private consultant providing smoking cessation and prevention programs in the Chicago area.