Patent ID: 7028693

Claim:
A method for reducing cigarette consumption comprising: (a) recording data that describe a smoker's cigarette consumption during a data collection period comprising multiple units of smoking minutes and nonsmoking minutes, wherein the data collected for each unit comprise the total number of cigarettes smoked, the time of day the first cigarette is smoked, and the time of day the last cigarette is smoked; (b) calculating the number of cigarettes scheduled for consumption during a unit of a subsequent reduced-smoking period by multiplying the goal amount of smoking reduction by said total number of smoked cigarettes recorded during a corresponding unit of said data collection period; (c) calculating the number of possible smoking minutes for said corresponding unit of said data collection period by determining the amount of time between the time of day the first cigarette is smoked and the time of day the last cigarette is smoked; (d) calculating the time interval between scheduled cigarette consumption events by dividing the number of possible smoking minutes determined in step (c) by the number of scheduled cigarettes determined in step (b); (e) generating a schedule for reduced cigarette consumption during one or more units of said reduced-smoking period, said schedule providing that the time of day for the first cigarette consumption of said units of said reduced-smoking period begin at the same time or after the time of day for the first cigarette consumption recorded during said corresponding unit of said data collection period and scheduling each subsequent cigarette consumption event to occur after the previous event by the time interval determined in step (d); (f) implementing the reduced smoking schedule through a device capable of signaling to the smoker when a cigarette is scheduled to be consumed; and (g) repeating steps (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f) for subsequent reduced-smoking periods, until the number of scheduled cigarette consumption events reaches a level desired by the smoker or until no cigarettes are scheduled.