“Smokers are never told that up to 75% of successful ex-smokers quit unaided,” said a public health expert, who reviewed hundreds of studies into quitting smoking and is now calling for more effective campaigns and policies worldwide.
Drug companies, tobacco control advocates and public health professionals are over-promoting nicotine replacement therapy and other smoking cessation drugs, according to Simon Chapman and Ross MacKenzie from the University of Sydney, Australia.
The pharmaceutical industry is influencing public health practice away from methods that are proven to help the majority of smokers to quit, they said in their review in the journal PLoS Medicine.
“For obvious reasons (a $1.7 billion market in 2006) the pharmaceutical industry is intent on pathologising a process that for decades saw millions of people quit unaided,” Chapman said.
Of course, you would be robbing them of their much needed profits. So start smoking (to help tobacco company profit), then take your costly medicine to stop. Then start smoking again and…
0
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
But smoking is addictive, and those evil tobacco companies were sued for it.
Ya gotta wanna!
And if you don’t really want to, it ain’t gonna happen.
RSweeney, you said it exactly right! After several halfhearted attempts that inevitably failed, one day the true desire to quit hit me like a ton of bricks, and even quitting cold turkey was easy.
Nearly 20 years smoke-free and damn thankful.
I quit the easy way, congestive heart failure.
I quit unaided. I realized I was addicted and it was a stupid habit to begin with, so I decided to kick it.
I went out at 5 am (because I had run out and was freaking out, that’s how I realized I was addicted) and bought two packs. I always bought in twos. I let myself smoke the last two packs of my life. I savored them slowly and guilt-free for a couple of days. And I never smoked again.
It was a bit hard for about a month. Then it got easier every week until the point at which somebody else’s smoke would bother me. I’ve been tobacco-free for 8 years. I don’t miss it at all.
I think it works better if you just go cold turkey. People who try to quit gradually are just kidding themselves.
I’ll never smoke again. Of all the stupid things I’ve ever done, that’s the only one I really regret. I don’t know what I was thinking when I began to smoke.
Had a doctor tell me to NOT try to quit once….
Don’t ask…. 😀
However, I did quit cold turkey about 15 years ago. I almost never smoked around my daughter, and since she was one of those “gotta hold me” babies, I was almost there when she got old enough to leave in a playpen for a couple minutes and go into another room.
One night a few years later, down with the flu or something, I lit one up in the throne room, and it tasted awful. I decided to put it out, and wait until I felt better. About 10 hours later, I felt better, but decided not to light up. Another ten hours and I was done….
I was ready, and wanted to…. The first few weeks weren’t easy, but…. My doc had some sample patches, but wouldn’t give them to me – very early on the curve, and he didn’t feel that they were safe enough….
Couple years later, my daughter, who’d been pestering me to quit before I did, started smoking…. I think she’s quit again….
At current prices I couldn’t afford ’em anyway, so I guess I win.
I quit after 25 yrs at age 38. The withdrawal symptoms lasted about a week, then any craving was gone for good. I thought I was pretty strong for toughing it out coldturkey.
About 4 months later I got real depressed.
I’m 54 now and wondering how to quit being depressed.
I quit 5 years ago just before my daughter was born. Used the patch, but not that whole BS step down thing. Used them for 2 weeks and that was that. Didn’t think I could do it since I smoked since I was 14. Tried cold turkey once when I was 25, but nothing really motivated me at that time to make me want to quit.
here are 25 of those proven methods!
I did a cold turkey quit. It is really the only way. You just have to look at the damn thing and think to yourself “Is this little thing really stronger than me? No f**king way.”.
The best way to quit smoking is death.
I went from almost two packs a day to zero in about a month. Toothpicks helped a lot. Seriously.
Those e-cigs are a pretty good replacement, though. Real enough.
About as easy as ten pushups, on one hand, holding your breath, with a wild baboon on your back.
Twenty-five years ago I switched to skoal. I was teaching at the time and got away with it during classes. Fifteen years later I decided to quit that. To me it was harder than cigarettes to stop. Even with the gum my neck turned into a rock from tension. It was a damn hard two months. I swore I would never invite another demon like that in.
#5 – Actually, I quit gradually. I was a pack-a-day smoker for about 8 years before I decided to call it quits. I brought myself down to 5-7 cigs/day over a period of 6 months, then went on the patch for a week, then that was it.
Quitting is 10% physical and 90% mental. You have to WANT to quit. If drugs get you over that mental hump by making you believe that you’re reaching your goal, so be it. But without making an honest mental commitment, you’re just fooling yourself.
God created the stuff and people have free will. More lawsuits or why not accept mistreatment and leave it at that? Philip Morris wasn’t politically correct, which is no reason to blot out a family name. The department of crazy drug names is taking over. Take 2 fukitols and call me in the morning.
As part of the settlement, the industry also agrees to a range of advertising and marketing restrictions. The industry had previously settled with the attorneys general of the four other states.
The bureaucrats get to wreck both the pubs and the publishers while splitting up lawsuit dollars to protect the public from itself. Suicidal side effects are acceptable with pills. Smoking in a pub is too dangerous.
I started in Korea when the government would sell me a pack of cigarettes for eight cents.
I quit when the government raised the tax on my cigarettes to eighty cents. The government giveth and the government taketh away.
Trust the government to provide the solution. The government gave me a weapon and told me to go kill people, now the government has told me they will fine me $100 if I drive my car without buckling my seat belt.
My government is concerned with my health and well being aren’t they. Phamas who are advertising how hard it is to quit smoking, are doing so with government subsidies, so it must be hard to quit. Otherwise the Government wouldn’t subsidize them would they.
I didn’t find it to be so hard, but then I am a strong man, not a weak willed whimp looking for an excuse to have people feel sorry for me.
I quit over three years ago after a weekend in a hospital. I now see my doctor at least four times a year if not more. Its funny that everything started to go after I hit 40. I am now taking better care of myself and I changed my diet. I also gave up soda and salt or sugar based foods (chips & cookies). I even cut back to two cups of coffee in the morning. (that was HARD).
“It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it hundreds of times”. Mark Twain
I quit by slowly restricting the areas where I allowed myself to smoke. First, not in the car. Then, not in the house. The places where I could smoke gradually became fewer and fewer so that I began to break the association between smoking and the places I spent most of my time.
Lying to yourself helps when the cravings get severe. Tell yourself that in 10 minutes, you will light one up. After ten minutes, extend the time period for some additional length of time. Getting through the first month or so is the hard work, but it’s entirely possible for everyone.
I think many quitters fail because they say to themselves “I SHOULD quit,” which is not the same as “I WANT to quit.” You have to really want it.
Using an electronic cigarette is the only sure way to quit. At least it was for me.
MY mom quit a year ago but she recently tried the electronic cigarette to cope with being around my grandmother. She started smoking again and thinks it was the nicotine in the electronic cigarette.
I found Honeyrose Cigarettes a little over a year ago. They’re Herbal Nicotine free Cigarettes. I swear by the nicotine free cigarettes, at least to me the key is getting off the nicotine and since you mentally associate the smoking with nicotine I think they’re the perfect tool to get off the damned things.
I never let my parents know I smoked. When my grandfather died, I had to go home and spend time with family and I couldn’t get a way for a cigarette for a few days. Since it had been almost 72 hours, I decided to wait since I heard physical addiction of cigarettes ends after 72 hours.
I have been smoke free since then, except for a cigar now and then. I tried a cigarette or two on drinking nights and they just tasted nasty to me anymore. I used to like the taste of cigarettes, but I think they are yucky now.
I quit on my own. I had a quit smoking product I never used. I quit smoking without a product. I am not going to pay the tobacco taxes they have now. It is ridicules that the same cigarette I used to buy at $4.25 a pack are now $6.50. I am not about to pay that much a day to smoke. That is almost $2400. Not doing it.
Four cigars a year cost me $30 total. Much better and healthier.
Except no substitutes. Even using some kind of herbal cigarette, is still smoking SOMETHING. So you’re not really kicking the habit entirely. It would be like keeping all your old Gin and Whiskey bottle around the house, and filling them up with sugar water. While thinking you’re ending your alcoholism. But the bottles are still a reminder, and a temptation to get the real thing again. This is why I condemn all look a like substitutes for smoking and chewing tobacco. Like the nicotine gum and patches, it keeps one doing harm to oneself, but just to a slightly more acceptable degree. I think those “candy cigarettes” and shredded bubble gum products, were all designed by the tobacco industry, thru some straw company, to get and keep people hooked on what they replaced. Is there candy you can snort up your nose, like Cocaine? Or soft drink that comes in a attractive liquor bottle? No? Gee, I wonder why?
This article is correct, and not surprising to me. After all, there are no patches or gum for other drugs and alcohol abuse. No other substance abuse has a weening process, using the same substance in weaker doses. It’s medically insane to prescribe it. But the tobacco and drug industry are much more concerned about their joint bottom lines. That they’ve corrupted medical logic, in favor of this mercantile treatment. So while you MAY be slowly kicking the addiction. They’re still making money from it, by dragging it out as long as possible.
Not smoking ANYTHING, and not using ANY nicotine, and not hanging around places and people who still smoke. IS the only way to quit completely, and as quickly as possible. It won’t be pleasant. But it won’t go on for years and years, with relapses the norm.
The fact is that you’re not smoking the same tobacco that existed for many years. Some time ago, the industry quietly doctored the gene of the plants, in order to grow them with a higher nicotine level. That, on top of the nicotine they’re already getting away with ADDING to the processed leaves (to make up for some imagined loss). Plus all the sweet flavorings, to make it more appealing to the young. It’s positively diabolical. And the government knows it, and has kept pretty much quiet about for years. We hear more about the virtues of Waterboarding, from Dick Cheney. Than about what the tobacco industry keeps getting away with.
While every other addictive substance is on some “controlled” distribution list. Tobacco is allowed to remain freely marketable. With just a token inconvenience of sales to minors. But they’re still getting it. After a local grocery store went out of business, who was across from my town’s Middle School, that use to carry cigars and cigarette. A few months later a dedicated tobacco store opened up, directly across from the same Middle School. Less than a block away! You can’t tell me this was just a coincidence. And there’s a gas station right next to the Grade School, that also sells tobacco. It’s the ONLY gas station for miles that’s also a convenience store. Even though there are two large grocery stores within a block of it, and a 7-11 across from it. But we wouldn’t want the kiddies to have to cross a busy intersection to get their cigs, now would we?
The only reason our local Senior High School doesn’t have a tobacco shop or “convenience” store within half a mile of it. Is because it’s located in a NO retail store zone. But since those kids can drive cars. I’m sure they can make it 3/4 of a mile to that dedicated tobacco shop. And you can bet the “carding” policy is lax. Or why else be there, and no where else in town? That’s right, it’s the only tobacco shop in at least a four mile radius. And they picked a school to be in front of, as ground zero.
#3
My father quit cold turkey after a heart to heart talk with him and myself. I know of several others that did the same. I know of one person so far that did the drug thing trying to quit but he did it mainly because it “seem” like the thing to do. For example a FAD.
I’m not saying there aren’t people that may need the extra help but I don’t see how one can’t quit without the drugs.
I think what better to stop smoking using next scheme :
1. Lower amount of dangeroues components in tobacco switching to e-cigarettes.
2. Read Allen Karr book ‘Easiest way to stop smoking’ (good book really, using NLP methods to quit smoking) and decide final quit smoking date.
3. At first time better to using some dietary supplements to stay calm for example without cigarettes.
4. Find support group, because so easy to start smoking again. You really need support, because so many peoples smoking around!
I stop smoking after my meditation and yoga. I love your article. Great site! Thanks. Maya
Aid through pills, plasters and the likes of is a path to momentary releif in case you start PMS’ing when craving nicotine, which is fine.
Sadly, many people get addicted to the aid instead. And sure, it’s better than filling your lungs with smoke, but why change a bad habit with another?
It takes will power to stop smoking. Even better: Change the programming in your subconcious mind. That way, it’s not just up to your will power, but not smoking is the way you are, the way you think – subconciously and conciously. Hypnosis can help you get through to the subconcious mind, if you let it. Give it a try!