A Knight in Dragonland

13 responses so far ↓

• 1    Michael Legel // Nov 5, 2007 at 1:43 pm

  As an ex-smoker I can tell you that ad won’t even bother the average smoker. They live in a cloud of nicotine addicted denial. Until the medical community and society at large begin to understand smoking for the addiction that it is, those who use tobacco will continue their addictions unto death. First of all the medical community won’t make a real difference until they get out of bed with the drug companies who make all the nicotine substitutes. You can’t give up an addiction by feeding the addiction. Changing the delivery system only transfers the wealth to a new dealer. Even worse, the continued myth that it is “very difficult” to quit smoking just gives the smoker an excuse. Nothing could be easier. Don’t put it in your face, don’t set it on fire. Most importantly we need to get to the root of the problem … it is an addiction. There isn’t a smoker on the planet that “enjoys smoking” else they would be happy to roll up a sweat sock and smoke it. It isn’t the smoke … it is the nicotine. The smoker doesn’t enjoy the smoke, the smoker enjoys ridding themselves of the craving for nicotine. Another aspect we feed … that it is a “sacrifice” to get the monkey off your back when it is the exact opposite. It is a sacrifice of your life to continue to feed the addiction. When people are quitting they are encouraged “not to think about it”. Duh!? Of course they are going to think about it, so encourage them to think positively and humorously as in “YIPPIE, I am a non-smoker”. And last, be aware of the “What now” feeling. Too many smokers keep waiting for something to happen after they quit, some final proof that they have quit. It already happened. If you aren’t smoking you have quit. Too many will “try just one” to see if they have really quit. Ask any life-long non-smoker if they ever consider smoking a cigarette to make sure they don’t smoke anymore. Makes as much sense. People have to realize all of the above and they have to WANT to quit before they can stop the nicotine addiction. Warning labels, patches, and chewing gum just enables the nicotine addict. The real question in my mind is, “Why do we allow bars to have parking lots if we don’t condone drinking and driving?”

• 2    Knight in Dragonland // Nov 5, 2007 at 10:49 pm

  Michael, perhaps you could explain to me how the medical community is “in bed with the drug companies who make all the nicotine substitutes.” I make precisely zippo if I recommend that a patient or their parent use a nicotine substitute to help quit their addiction. Almost all such substitutes are available over-the-counter … one doesn’t even need a doctor’s prescription to use them.

  I recommend such nicotine substitutes for two reasons. One, nicotine replacements are proven to aid in smoking cessation by randomized, placebo-controlled trials. It is NOT easy to quit, and your statements to that effect fly in the face of literally tons of data that prove otherwise. Cold turkey quit methods produce a quit rate around 5%. Smoking cessation programs including nicotine replacement can achieve four to eight times that number, depending on what additional facets the cessation program provides.

  Two, even if a person continued to use a nicotine substitute ad infinitum but remained smoke-free, they would be much healthier individuals. Nicotine does have some negative health consequences by itself, but it mainly serves as the hook that keeps smokers coming back to cigarettes. It’s the 4000 other chemicals in tobacco smoke that cause the real damage and the major morbidities including cancer and cardiovascular disease. If someone wants to keep using purified nicotine for the rest of their life, that’s far better for their health than continuing to smoke.

• 3    Michael Legel // Nov 6, 2007 at 7:04 am

  As I said … I smoked for years. I tried every method advised my the medical community and I quit every time. And I started right back again when the medicinal nicotine or therapy was removed.

  I should have used a less critical phrase than “in bed with”. What I meant was that the medical community currently looks for a pharmaceutical cure for almost everything. I don’t fault their intent or their integrity, but sometimes what is needed is some honesty.

  It is not difficult to quit smoking. One can chew tobacco or snuff or alter the means of introduction but it is the quitting the nicotine that is difficult. And even that is far less difficult if the person understands it is actually quite easy to do. All one needs is the proper frame of mind and a genuine wish to quit. Without those two ingredients nobody quits for long. Telling people it is difficult and giving them alternative means of administering an addictive substance merely hinder the long term goal in my opinion.

  Over almost 30 years of smoking I talked to a large number who had quit and almost every one of them who had remained smoke-free for over a decade advised the same thing — just quit. I tried the gum, hypnotism, acupuncture, etc. and I always ended up back smoking because I felt I had given up a habit I enjoyed. It wasn’t until I realized it was the addiction that was at the root that I began to study the PSYCHOLOGY of addiction. I put them down and never looked back the following week. But only because I was ready to quit and I understood how to quit.

  At least we agree it is important to QUIT! I would much rather discuss that than try to convince a smoker otherwise. And I will backtrack just a bit on the “Warning Label”, while I realize it will do almost nothing for current abusers; the warning just might prevent a new user and there is great value in that.

• 4    C. J. Summers // Nov 6, 2007 at 11:21 am

  This ad is based on the faulty assumption that people smoke because they’re unaware of the risks. I doubt there’s a smoker alive today who is unaware that smoking causes lung cancer. How many times have you heard, “I’m going to die anyway, I might as well die happy,” or “My grandfather smoked a pack a day and lived to be 97″? Showing a damaged lung isn’t going to sway anyone who isn’t already swayed.

• 5    Michael Legel // Nov 6, 2007 at 2:55 pm

  Please pardon this twisted analogy but in my warped mind it seems to fit.

  Many years ago when I was barely into my teens I happened to be in the back yard at the home of a friend. His father had been working in the yard and had just put away his yard tools and was putting an enormous antique padlock on the rickety shed where he stored them. I can remember laughing and telling him it was a waste of time to put that monster lock on a splintery door that any grade school kid could probably bust into. I think often of his reply. “A lock will only keep a basically honest person out anyway.”

  Everyone from the youngest child to the eldest adult knows that smoking is bad for you. The warning label is like that lock, you have to knowingly get past it to take your pleasure. You can’t honestly say, “I didn’t know!”.

• 6    Michelle // Nov 6, 2007 at 9:23 pm

  Actually … it’s not just the nicotine. It is the pleasure in the little smoking rituals that I miss as much as anything.

  Smoking was just fun, and it’s associated in my mind with many pleasant things.

  There was something extremely nice about sitting in bed with a drink and a book and a cigarette. It felt very indulgent.

  I have many great college memories of sitting across from a friend late at night talking about how to save the world, both of us puffing away like Frenchmen.

  It took me a long time to figure out how to write without having a cigarette right next to the mouse. I thought I’d never get the knack of composing my thoughts smoke-free.

  And then there’s the classic attraction of cigarettes many people feel when enjoying night life. An awful lot of people who don’t normally smoke will indulge at a party or in a bar occasionally.

  And dare I say it? Sometimes after sex I cannot help but think, “A cigarette would sure be nice right now.”

  Cigarettes are deadly and nasty but I mill never stop missing them. They were harder than hell to give up.

• 7    Knight in Dragonland // Nov 7, 2007 at 3:50 am

  Michael,
  We agree on several issues. I agree that it’s very important that we pursue greater understanding of addiction. Tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse and overeating all trigger similar neurochemical pathways in the brain and all contribute greatly to human morbidity and mortality. Despite its enormous importance, the treatment of addiction remains poorly funded and an under-appreciated facet of the medical community.

  I also do not see nicotine substitutes as the ONLY way to quit smoking, and I don’t see pharmacotherapy as the ONLY method to help smokers quit. As with many mental health issues, the best and most successful treatment option is to use a combination of medication and counseling approaches that is personalized for the individual smoker. Non-nicotine drug therapies are available as well, most notably buproprion (Wellbutrin or Zyban) and now varenicline (Chantix).

  CJ,
  I agree that such warning labels would have little effect on established smokers, although I certainly wouldn’t want to see that picture every time I pulled out a new cigarette if I was a smoker. However, it might have an impact on potential smokers – children and adolescents considering experimentation with cigarettes that have not yet become addicted. Canada has had such labels since 2001. It would be interesting to see if they have data to support their effectiveness.

• 8    Knight in Dragonland // Nov 7, 2007 at 4:18 am

  Another thing … if such graphic labels were required to take up a large portion of all cigarette packaging AND advertising, I believe it would have a significant impact. It’s hard to make cigarettes look fun, sexy, cool and appealing when there’s a giant picture of a rotting lung at the top of the ad. Cigarette manufacturers hook kids by pervasively presenting that false image of cigarette smoking. These companies wouldn’t spend billions of dollars on advertising if it wasn’t effective.

• 9    Michael Legel // Nov 7, 2007 at 6:33 am

  And I thought I was an early riser!

  It would seem good Knight that whatever disagreement we have on the subject is at risk of being resolved by common sense compromise.

  Your last words also prompted another memory of a co-worker who managed to quit by banding together with a group of fellow smokers in a smokers anonymous sort of social network. It seemed to work well for him, but would not have for me as I’m not as susceptible to social pressure.

  I think you did hit on a key provision. “Personalised for the individual smoker”

• 10    Michael Legel // Nov 7, 2007 at 6:35 am

  Hey! I think you forgot to set your clock back! My clock says 5:35 a.m. as I hit the submit button!

• 11    C. J. Summers // Nov 7, 2007 at 8:44 pm

  So, you don’t advocate regulating nicotine as a drug through the FDA or outlawing cigarettes outright because “prohibition didn’t work.” Thus, you think it should stay a legal product. Yet you also think that the government should require the companies to sabotage their own marketing of that legal product so people (I assume) won’t buy it and, ultimately, the company will go out of business. You also want to restrict where people can smoke to as few places as possible. At some point, one has to ask, what’s the difference? Why not just take the simple route and outlaw it?

• 12    Michael Legel // Nov 7, 2007 at 10:31 pm

  Legalization allows the government to control it far better than if we had to deal with the black market that would ensue were it not legalized. I personally have no problem with the FDA regulating the nicotine content of the product as a means to possibly make it less addictive. Unfortunately the tobacco lobby has kept that from happening.

  One look at the failed “drug wars” we already have should prove how ineffectual it is to criminalize addictions.

• 13    Knight in Dragonland // Nov 11, 2007 at 1:15 pm

  I certainly don’t have any problem with FDA regulation of tobacco products. I advocate a policy of harm reduction rather than outright prohibition because of the failure of such policies. Ethanol prohibition was a miserable failure in the 1920s. Ethanol remained plentiful, and the only ones who profited were the criminals. Prohibition of cocaine, opiates, marijuana and other illegal drugs has been a miserable failure in the modern era. Again, the only ones profiting from our policies are the criminals.

  Drugs of abuse continue to be extremely plentiful and readily available because we have done very little to reduce the demand for such drugs. We spend all our money on interdiction but very little on use prevention and cessation. The little we do spend on drug use prevention, we throw away on useless and ineffective programs like DARE.

  In short, the policies of the American government at all levels toward all drugs of abuse (including tobacco and ethanol) are completely and utterly retarded.

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