Smoking: Quitting is so hard
economist.com
economist.com
Gradually the convenience of the electronic cigarettes shifted my habit away from regular cigarettes, and I found myself rarely lighting up a normal one. I also would take fewer puffs, I might do one or two drags and put it down absentmindedly, not thinking about smoking for a while after. It was 100% on-demand, no urgency to finish something lit.
I tell people I 'accidentally quit' now, since I just gradually weaned myself off tobacco and nicotine. I haven't smoked or used electronic cigarettes in about eight years, and the cravings are gone. I liked smoking and I might consider going back to it if the health risks disappeared due to advances in medicine.
I wonder why the medical community hasn't done more to embrace electronic cigarettes as a 'safer' alternative or method of quitting. Addicts of other drugs are treated using the same model. I don't expect them to embrace it as a safe alternative, but I think they could help others quit or reduce their traditional cigarette smoking habits.
Will these candy flavored vaporizers get more kids addicted to nicotine?
Do people consume more nicotine with these vaporizers than if they had continued smoking cigarettes?
Is long term nicotine vapor inhalation harmful?
2 - Are kids allowed to smoke? Should we ban sweet wine?
3 - No. Actually less.
4 - Most likely. But the question is if it's more or less harmful than burning packaged cigarrettes.
It shouldn't matter, but I don't smoke or vaporize tobacco.
Everyone has seen electronic cigarettes in convenience stores everywhere, and they are billed as smoking cessation devices. The problem with them lies in that they only contain nicotine. The tobacco plant contains other psychoactive alkaloids like anabasine that smokers are used to and enjoy.
Whole tobacco alkaloid is a new type of juice for these devices. The two smokers I helped quit hated regular e-cigs because they are lacking. Very quickly they preferred vaping WTA juice to smoking. Smoking is dirty, smelly and socially discouraged.
Give them a better option and they will switch in droves.
I've examined all the tobacco extracts on the market, and the cleanest by far comes from a guy named Jeff at wholecig.com
He created his own process using only non-toxic solvents, it takes him 4 days to make one batch. He is an innovator and a nice guy.
In the future no one will burn raw tobacco, they will vape a full spectrum extract.
Update: I got an email saying this was the best written ad he's seen in a while, and I wanted to publicly say I have no ownership in wholecig and am not employed by them. I called Jeff about an order and got to talking to him and we swapped chemistry notes, I really like the guy and want his business to succeed because I think he's doing gods work, and saving lives through innovation.
Psychoactive meaning having an effect on the users brain.
I myself really detest the way even moderate amounts of alcohol make me feel the next day, and the effect of alcohol on my sleep.
Its all well and good to go out to a bar and not drink but you are on a different wavelength than the rest of the crowd and it's just not the same.
So not drinking definitely puts a damper on my social life in this small coastal village I live in.
You can try phenibut, and it will work as well for your purposes as anything else on the market.
its my second favorite nootropic from behind the iron curtain. Phenibut, as the story goes, was created for cosmonauts who needed something to calm the nerves while stuck in tiny metal capsules risking their lives. The existing drugs all dulled the senses. So phenibut exists as a kind of smart benzodiazepine alternative.
It is habit forming though and you want to avoid a dependency.
Update because I can't reply:
Phenibut is not a benzo, and I don't use it in place of alcohol, but for the questioner, its probably the closest replacement to alcohol that I know of, but still very different. And for those who would otherwise drink to relax a far healthier choice IMHO.
For those at risk alcohol can push them over the threshold into sleep apnea.
Over time alcohol makes one less attractive. Broken blood vessels, and looser skin from the inflammation from going to sleep intoxicated.
But clearly alcohol is useful and enjoyed by most adults, its ubiquity at social events is clear evidence, I believe its a critical social imperative to develop and promote healthier alternatives.
That one is more intended for mj and needs a torch lighter, so I guess it isn't as convenient as electronic ones, but it's much cheaper.
Disclaimer: I quit smoking before, so I can't really talk from long time experience, just tested it once.
If you're vaporizing tobacco extract, is that any better than smoking from a health perspective?
(On a related note, since you mentioned toxicity... the lack of any sort of standards or certification for e-cig "juice" really makes me nervous about the whole field. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the brands out there could cause damage to your lungs in the long term... we just don't know yet.
I've got a friend who makes juice as a business, and it really is just something done in his kitchen, and faith that his ingredients aren't harmful when inhaled.)
Hopefully this doesn't come off as sounding too critical. Just questions I keep thinking of, especially since I've had several friends go from non-spokers straight to using e-cigs (rather than using them to quit smoking), since they're promoted as being safe.
I believe that damage to the lungs is a real possibility, especially if the voltage is too high in the coils.
I can see no possibility that vaporizing tobacco extract is more harmful than smoking raw tobacco, either from a lung health or a cancer perspective.
I think vaping wta is a prudent harm reduction technique.
Other than that, knock yourself out.
They (use to, don't know if they still do) make ashtrays in cars. Most people I knew who had them and smoked didn't use them. They a) couldn't be bothered to clean it out regularly and/or b) didn't want the butts to stink up their car. But b) was pointless, they and their car already stunk like cigarettes. Their noses just could detect it anymore.
I think nobody can quit without having a genuine desire. I had my first kid born and not wanting him to inhale all this shit is a good genuine desire. (Even when you smoke outside on the balcony surrounding people get it, there's no escape. Everything else is a dumb excuse.)
E-cigarettes help to solve the aesthetic part of the equation - they take all the joy out. When you vape, you have the same doping effect except you realize what a pathetic f^H addict you are with all those batteries, cartridges, bottles of liquid and stuff. Bye-bye smoking with class.
The Alan Carr's book is a great help with the psychological aspect. From the perspective of hopeless addict (three packs a day) he tells you that quitting is very easy and it turns out to be indeed so. Carr also tells you to stop instantly instead of easing off. I got from smoking pack a day to vaping then chain-vaping and then I just quit right away. Carr also addressed one very important aspect for me as an IT guy: concentration. When I tried to quit smoking before I lost focus due to cravings and was afraid I could no longer work. Bullshit. Without cigarettes I am even more focused now. In the end you get more health, more focus, more stamina - more everything.
Finally, the bubble gum helped me to deal with the mechanical addiction. I wanted to smoke when I got into the car, when I got out of the car, after the lunch, and so on, so instead of smoking, I chewed spearmint bubblegum. Now I do without gum.
Good luck to everybody. It is indeed worth it.
Remember the emotions that you feel were generated via random permutations of your genetic code. Logic was developed by Grecian scholars and continually improved by the best of us. Don't "Trust your gut", trust your mind.
I hate this method of behavior control. It's always a disproportionate tax on the poor and yet another reason why if you are rich the rules don't apply to you.
I'm one of these people. I enjoy smoking cigars every once and awhile, and will enjoy a cigarette or two with no danger of addiction if I happen to be drunk and at a party with smokers. With that being said, I could easily see how an occasional smoker could turn into a regular smoker over time if tobacco was readily available and they were hanging around with other smokers regularly.
You can call this lying. However, it is what advertisers have been doing for ages.
Banning it.
I'm not even joking. If your only goal is to lower consumption rates, prohibition works. If you use cirrhosis deaths as a proxy, then alcohol consumption declined during the Prohibition era. [1]
The problem, of course, is everything else that happens in the wake of enforcing it.
An alternative option is to do nothing, because it's kind of a bikeshed issue, anyway.
[1] http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-3/209-219.htm
Be careful with this... It is the vapor salesman's false pitch. Nicotine is a known neurotoxin, it increases inflammation, lowers your hdl, raises your ldl, and stresses your endocrine system (adrenal et al.). While ecigs may deliver fewer toxins than analogs, that doesn't erase the fact that you are much better off without nicotine.
Unless there's a demonstrable, important (life affecting) effect, I wouldn't care too much about nicotine. Maybe some people are even naturally balancing some of their brain chemistry with it.
I wouldn't surprised if in 30 years we 'discover' that nicotine was okay all along, just like eating fat.
By the way, what is your opinion on caffeine?
I miss the neurostimulant effect badly... if you are right about nicotine being exonerated, I'll jump for joy and pick some up that day.
You have to show ID to purchase tobacco products. They even have signs at some convenience stores which say the year you must be born to purchase tobacco products, which the year is the current year minus 18.
Stop changing the cutoff year. This will allow the current generation of tobacco users to continue, but ban future generations from it.
I'm suspicious, mostly because it goes against the conventional wisdom that alcohol consumption increased during prohibition.
Hardly unbiased sources, but....
http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults1.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1920/chicagodea...
(And hey, I never said I supported it. tmvphil asked for less regressive alternatives to a straight Pigovian tax.)
If you are unsuccessful at discouraging people from smoking, people are going to pay more through health outcomes later on.
Health problems will be particularly difficult for poor people to overcome, even if they have help from the state (which may be increasingly over-burdened).
High taxation hasn't help him. I'm not sure anything would?
*Now I understand, what I mean by a 'life for themselves' is be a functioning member of society who pays his debts.
I agree with the point about using the tax to recoup some of the inevitable costs to society as a whole. But, on the issue of using taxation to modify people's behaviour, it doesn't always work as intended.
* the rich pay the tax too
* it has a cost and is a nuisance to others
* some countries fund the health programs caused by smoking thanks to those taxes
* you got to stop finding excuses about smoking, smokers are addicts, society must be intolerant towards regular smokers. I went through passive smoking as a kid, believe me, its awful.
And I'm just not sure I can get down with your intolerance. Smokers are people too. I know a tremendous number of them having made friends with my working class neighborhood in Brooklyn as well as my father. Passive smoking sucks but shaming people who smoke isn't really the answer just like shaming people who are overweight is also a tremendously shitty thing to do.
If both the supply and demand are high, but the health effect are bad, it's fair to introduce a tax.
It doesn't have a lot to do with regressive tax policies, which are based either on income or wealth, you can't apply that to tobacco products.
Next time are we going to argue about the tax on heroin once it's legal ? Public health policies are tricky because markets force are involved with addiction forces.
What happens to heroin addicts when the regular dealer go to prison ? They stop using.
It's a shitty situation in every way. There is just no way you can defend a lower tax on cigaret, except maybe if you're anti government. People will choose to buy food and rent before buying cigarets. At least it will reduce their smoking habits.
It's not just about funding government, it's also about discouraging people from buying cigarets. I honestly don't see any other way. Prohibiting would not work, it's a matter of game theory and a fine balance between smuggling cigarets and people buying them.
And honestly the cigaret tax paid is nothing compared to other taxes.
So are coffee drinkers. Do you give them a hard time?
The rich don't pay the tax in proportion to their wealth, so it is by definition regressive. The rich will have a minuscule incentive to quit, while the poor will have a huge incentive to quit.
>some countries fund the health programs caused by smoking thanks to those taxes
The poor shouldn't pay a higher rate to fund health programs than the wealthy.
The anit-smoking side views harm reduction as a movement that is completely against their efforts. To the anti-smoking side, vaping is the same as {cigarettes, cigars, pipes, shisha, snus, ...}. The anti-smoking side's stated agenda is absolute eradication of tobacco use in any form, and they've hit all fronts just short of prohibition.
The pro-smoking side take a small-l liberal view: People should be able to use tobacco. Their problem with harm reduction is that harm reduction is also against their stated goals. While the pro-smoking side will happily embrace vaping, they view it as yet another way to enjoy tobacco.
In the meantime, people like their vices. As an exercise, re-write the Economist article, but substitute "alcohol" for "tobacco". As I recall, there was such an article posted to HN that showed how journalism colors the perception of drugs by writing about alcohol use as if alcohol was a new drug, not a very old one.
Back to my point on harm reduction, I believe that sooner or later a stasis should be reached. Harm reduction will be embraced by both sides. I believe that the only way to reduce the negative effects of any substance use to a society is to teach the risks and the safest way to use the substance. I think that the end result will be an open market where the suppliers of the substance will sell their product in any way they can and a corresponding social pressure that pushes users towards more acceptable (less harmful) practices while supporting programs that allow for self-selected cessation.
You take a normal cigarette and test the tar and nicotine content. You then take the same cigarette and piece small holes in the filter. This new cigarette will test as lower tar and lower nicotine, but when real humans use it (blocking the holes) it's the same cigarette.
Chewing tobacco was sold as a harm reduction measure - and it caused a lot of mouth and throat and bowel cancer.
Tobacco companies are scum. It's a good thing that people are sceptical of tobacco companies.
First tried it out of curiosity when I was at a tobacco shop and saw the strange cans in a tiny refrigerator behind the counter, and before finishing the can, noticed I had been completely forgetting to smoke (20 year 1 pack a day habit.) I had accidentally quit within 2 months.
2 years later I quit snus entirely also, and I've been 3 years without a tobacco product of any sort. Snus is far easier to quit than smoking because you lose the hand thing, and the inhaling thing, and the exhaling thing, and basically everything that is fun about cigarettes, and are simply left with a pure addiction. That can't be said about electronic cigarettes, which are pretty much an drop-in replacement for cigarettes.
In that, just the switch to snus is like half-quitting in itself. Snus is also well-studied, with no known negative health effects other than an assumed link to higher rates of a few rare pancreatic cancers - based on the fact that it contains a chemical that has been linked in cigarettes to higher rates of those pancreatic cancers, but snus contains that chemical in about a tenth of the concentration.
And by well studied, I mean really well studied: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=swedish%20snus&btnG=Sea...
Really, both nicotine and caffeine are terrible stimulants, despite the fact that most people, especially city people and young people, seem to love stimulants. For example, chewing coca leaves or consuming coca-leaf derived teas is probably better for you than smoking (and certainly better for you than snorting cocaine). Coca Cola famously used to include coca leaves: why not re-legalize? Ephedrine is also a great natural stimulant, still consumed traditionally in China, Central and South Asia.
Alcohol is awesome socially at a certain range of intoxication, beyond that it gets progressively more terrible. However, many people who have tried low doses of empathogens such as MDMA believe they are better socially than alcohol. Many highly ranked medical professionals also believe that occasional use of these substances is less dangerous than alcohol.
But intelligent drug policy is unlikely to happen on a wide scale any time soon: like many major facets of our current international capitalist dystopia, there's far too many cashed up, cross-border, back-scratching mutual support networks with an interest in the status quo to easily facilitate change: for example existing cartels with near-monopolies on supply (and everyone they pay off), big pharma, the prison industry, and conservative politics.
PS. To quit smoking, have a child... you get free backup from hormone changes, and naturally wind up spending more time around non-smoking young parent types.
While I agree that caffeine is less potent / enjoyable than ephedrine, it is far safer. I would certainly not advocate for widespread consumption of ephedrine, as overdose is far easier and more dangerous, especially if mixed with caffeine.
I have an electronic cig at the moment, as it's when I am drunk that I crave cigarettes the most.
wanting to give up smoking is a terrible reason to have a child, though I am sure that's not quite the way you intended that last part to come out.)
Deliberately inverting motivations or reversing cause and effect is a common form of humor. Another example: "If you want to wear your seatbelt, get into a car crash."
It is also a stimulant that we used to use in high school; stay up for days tweaking, thinking that spiders were in our hair. It also makes a great precursor for crystal meth, which is why it is a controlled substance.
That is certainly one of the levers used in Australia. It has also promoted a thriving black market for cigarettes. There’s a balancing act there.[4]
Other measures such as plain packaging, graphic warnings on packaging and banning in many public places are also in use here.
A while ago I listened to a Freakonomics podcast[1] about how to make people quit smoking. There were two related points that stuck with me.
1. Nicotine can have a lot of positive benefits. As one of their experts stated, “Good drug, bad delivery system.” [2]
2. One of those benefits is a possible anti-depressant effect. So smoking may inadvertently be treating a person’s undiagnosed mental health issue[3], an additional difficulty when trying to quit smoking.
This second point has made me a little more compassionate towards smokers, and to the difficulty of quitting. (As least in theory, still get annoyed when I can smell cigarette smoke on myself after a trip down to the shops because of some smoker on the sidewalk.)
[1] http://freakonomics.com/2014/04/03/how-to-make-people-quit-s...
[2] I don’t think smoking, and trying to quit smoking, it just about the nicotine. That’s just one aspect of the issue.
[3] NOT advocating this as an excuse to continue smoking. There are better treatments.
[4] “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing.” — Jean Baptiste Colbert
Then again one of the appeals of smoking is the fact that it's rebellion of sorts so not sure any campaigns work.
Keep on hammering the supply side is the best bet I'd guess. The demand side seems really tricky.
The instructions tell you to pick a day to stop like 5 days after starting the drug, I think on day 7 I just didn't feel like smoking anymore. After the prescription ran out I started to crave cigarettes again but no where nearly as badly as going cold turkey so I just didn't smoke any more.
Sounds like magic but it's just a damn good book.
Most addicts don't want to, probably because they enjoy it.
So try to convince them to start vaping instead - much the same hit, much less cancer.