Politics / President Obama Obama Off the Cigs: White House Healthy president hasn't lit up for 9 months By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff Posted Dec 10, 2010 10:26 AM CST Copied President Obama smiles as he and his youngest daughter, Sasha, 9, attend the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony on the Ellipse, just south of the White House,Dec. 9, 2010. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Despite taxes, treaties, and other stresses, President Obama appears not to have smoked a cigarette in 9 months, the White House says. “I've not seen or witnessed evidence of any smoking” in that time, said press secretary Robert Gibbs. “Even where he might have once found some comfort in that ... he's pushed it away.” Doctors said Obama was in “excellent health” at his last checkup, the Washington Post reports. Obama understands "its dangers and I think has done a lot of extraordinary work to wrestle with that habit, as millions of Americans have," Gibbs added. (More President Obama stories.) Report an error