Eliminating nicotine from tobacco products could help millions of smokers quit

I propose an alternative - a charity should just give nicotine gum or patches to smokers to help them quit. For many smokers this is enough (it's how I quit) and would improve their lives. Nicotine gum is cheaper than cigarettes, too.

There seems like a market opportunity here for insurance companies who are paying for smoking-related treatments; why aren't they offering free gum to their clients? Even a percentage uptake should save them money if their incentives are aligned.

Here's summary:

A range of potential concerns and barriers was addressed, including the technical feasibility of reducing cigarette nicotine content to non-addictive levels, the possibility that compensatory smoking would reduce potential health benefits, and whether such an approach would foster illicit (“black market”) tobacco sales. Education, treatment, and research needs to enable a nicotine reduction strategy were also addressed.

The Council on Scientific Affairs came to the following conclusions:

(a) gradually eliminating nicotine from cigarettes is technically feasible;

(b) a nicotine reduction strategy holds great promise in preventing adolescent tobacco addiction and assisting the millions of current cigarette smokers in their efforts to quit using tobacco products;

(c) potential problems such as compensatory over-smoking of denicotinised cigarettes and black market sales could be minimised by providing alternate forms of nicotine delivery with less or little risk to health, as part of expanded access to treatment; and

(d) such a strategy would need to be accompanied by relevant research and increased efforts to educate consumers and health professionals about tobacco and health.

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Just wondering, if there's suddenly less nicotine in cigarettes, could it mean that people will start smoking more cigarettes to get the amount of nicotine they need?

So for example, if you always have a cigarette the moment you get off the bus, force yourself to wait 10 minutes before sparking up. Do that for ALL your triggers. And always go outside to smoke, regardless of the weather - no comfy couch or office desk. You want to separate that bit of comfort, too. As a side-effect, your home will smell less like a disgusting ashtray even before you finally do quit.

Sometimes 10 minutes after the trigger and initial urge passes, you might not feel like smoking at that moment, or you are onto something else that needs to be done. Too bad - spark up. This is to make the physical act of smoking a bit of a nuisance instead of an instant reward. If it gets in the way of something, great. If you REALLY don't feel like smoking at that moment, definitely force yourself to finish it. The more unpleasant or unwanted that smoke is for you, the better.

After you get used to the 10 minute delays, make it 15 minutes. Then 20. Once you can last 20 minutes from the urge or trigger moment, you can decide to skip the cigarette. You probably don't really want it anyway, and if you can last 20 minutes from the onset of an urge, you're well on your way to quitting, and can now start to focus on having fewer cigs per day.

Anyway, it took her a couple of months, but now it's been a couple of years since she's smoked. She only had excessive urges for the first few weeks, and didn't experience actual withdrawal. She just got to the point where she didn't care about it anymore, and then stopped.

The hardest part for her was breaks at work, but she compensated by only having a single cigarette timed to coincide with the end of her break.

Think of it this way, we could also "Cure" alcoholism by taking alcohol out of beer, wine and spirits. Maybe we could fight the opioid epidemic by taking the active ingredient out of pain killers too, and while we are at it lets make all chocolate sugar free carob to cut down on the number of fattys out there.

Cigarettes are a awful product that have a huge social cost but if You think making people wear masks is difficult, just try taking nicotine out of a smokers tobacco and see what happens!

Nicotine is an intensely habit forming drug.

You smoke for the nicotine, whether you realize it or not. Take it out, and you've lost the primary reason you smoke: the true sweetness of all cigarettes is due to one flavor, just like the true sweetness of all wine is due to one flavor.

If you eliminate nicotine from legal cigarettes, the vast majority of smokers will stop smoking. Sure, maybe after a few binge sessions where they desperately and fruitlessly seek that hit.

I think the fraction of smokers who will sustain a smoking addiction via black market cigarettes is less than 10%. To maintain a smoking addiction, you need to buy a lot of cigarettes. Few have sufficiently frequent access to black markets to sustain it.

And yes, I'm chewing that damn gum as I write this;)

To clarify, I don't advocate banning nicotine. I advocate banning nicotine delivered via toxic trash-heap. The same way I'd advocate banning alcohol mixed with methanol, if that was a super popular drink.

Having said that, when I only have access to light cigarettes, that come with less nicotine, I just end up smoking more cigarettes, as the craving is not satisfied.

1. Outlaw tobacco production and importation. 2. Pay smokers to stop - with regular drug testing.

Of course this plan is politically impossible in a country that cannot even agree on face masks during a pandemic. And that is why smoking will be here for a very long time.

1) A lot of my friends smoked Juuls. Once those became hard to find, they switched to cigarettes.

2) I hate smoking lights or menthols because I need to smoke more of them to get the same satisfaction as a 100.

3) A lot of people don't know you can at least write-off smoking cessation aids on your taxes.

4) There are medications such as Wellbutrin that help reduce cravings. I've taken one, and it basically makes it so you get nauseous from smoking or dampens your ability to taste it at all.

5) It's annoying to get cessation aids. There are plenty of neighborhoods without even a basic pharmacy and no dearth of liquor stores.

6) There's campaigns to prevent people from smoking and there's campaigns to help people quit. There's one way to moralize and there's another way towards harm reduction. Telling people they will die or get sick only makes them feel more cool. Smoking is cool. Especially when you're a teenager who feels invincible.

6a) I like this campaign they did in Japan produced by Japan Tobacco. http://inventorspot.com/articles/japan_tobaccos_delightfully...

7) Encourage smokers to carry an ashtray. Muji sells one for $5. It is my favorite accessory, because I use it to pick up other people's cigarettes. https://www.muji.us/store/d-aluminium-portable-ashtray.html

8) Cigarettes are incredibly valuable as currency and shifting their value towards the black market will backfire. The illegal cigarette trade has all sorts of geopolitical ramifications and even selling a loosie here in USA will get you killed.

9) Nicotine by itself is not sufficient for me. I smoke cigarettes BECAUSE they are dirty. There is something more than just nicotine that is addictive about the flavor. Substituting or replacing nicotine intake does nothing to change my addiction to the habit itself.

10) People smoke literally just to talk to other smokers. This is basically a science in nightlife culture and even a tradition in some places.

In conclusion: this smells like ethics washing. The only "better" cigarette, is no cigarette.

The argument for a "safer" cigarette is old. And it's marketing. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/cigarette/

There are substantial measures we can take actions towards to reduce harm. Reduction of pesticides. Polonium. Regulation in cultivation and curing. Did you know that tomatoes can get mosaic virus from smoke or ash? Things like 'natural', 'organic', 'less-additive' create false perceptions of 'healthiness'.

Legalize cigarettes. Ban smoking.

Aside: The title is 'easy-way-to-quit-smoking'

The headline is 'The Easy Way for Joe Biden to Save Lives'

The submission is 'Eliminating nicotine from tobacco products could help up to 5 million adult smokers quit within a year.'

I find the wording to be a bit odd.

While we’re at it, let’s replace all sugar with saccharin, only sell non alcoholic beer, and ban recreational intercourse.

Truly a proposal from a sexless bureaucrat building a teetotalist snoozetown.