Funding: Supported by National Cancer Institute grants R25 CA236637 and T32CA117865.

CRediT author contributions:

Conceptualization: KSH, KEH, RLC

Methodology: KEH, KSH, RLC

Data curation: KEH, KSH, RLC, VPV

Writing—Original draft: KEH, KSH, RLC, VPV

Writing—Review and editing: KEH, KSH, RLC, VPV

Supervision: KSH

Project administration: KSH

Funding acquisition: KSH

Conflicts of interest:

Katy Hilts, Robin Corelli, Veronica Vernon, and Karen Hudmon: None

Key Points

What is known:

• Pharmacists are uniquely positioned in community settings to provide tobacco cessation assistance and medications for patients who are ready to quit.

• In 2004, New Mexico was the first state to grant pharmacists the authority to prescribe all cessation medications under a statewide protocol.

What is new:

• As of June 2022, autonomous prescribing models now exist in 16 states (with 1 additional state in process).

• Eight of the 16 states include all medications for cessation.

• In most states, requirements include tobacco cessation education for pharmacists, patient health screening prior to prescribing, specific cessation intervention components, and direct notification of the patient’s primary care provider.

• Since 2004, there have been no associated negative incident reports submitted to state boards of pharmacy with respect to pharmacists prescribing tobacco cessation medications.