The distinguished medical journal, The Lancet, in June 2016 reported the results of a huge multinational collaborative effort to investigate the risks of psychiatric side-effects of two drugs used in smoking cessation: varenicline (Champix®) and bupropion (Zyban®); no evidence of increased harm was found compared with nicotine patches and placebo (dummy) treatments. This must have been good news [...]

Not everyone is happy about e-cigarettes. Dr Phil Banfied, chairman of the British Medical Association's Welsh Council, wants to see proof of their safety. To emphasize the need for caution with these new drug (nicotine) delivery devices, he reminded the audience at a BMA Welsh Council meeting that thalidomide, which was originally thought to be safe, turned out [...]

In the best tradition of the orthodox approach to smoking cessation, this year’s vintage of the quaintly named Stoptober scheme, produced by NHS England, has just finished. At least it’s an improvement on the previous two versions. Last year’s seemed intended to encourage smokers to quit through humour. Is it a laughing matter? The idea of Stoptober is [...]

Amazing discovery! Now you can enjoy poisoning yourself with nicotine by e-cigarettes without doing yourself any harm at all! Guaranteed 95 per cent safe! You can get the same satisfaction as smoking cigarettes but without the tar! Really? I can’t get-no satisfaction…a man comes on to tell me…but he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke the [...]

It seems cigar smoking is still regarded as ‘naughty but nice,’ at least by one doctor – an anaesthetist into the bargain – who in a recent interview in The British Medical Journal admitted that his 'guiltiest pleasure' was ‘the Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No 2 cigar.’ He added, guiltily, ‘Although I know I shouldn’t.’ I thought there [...]

NRT, let me remind you, means so-called nicotine replacement therapy. Why 'so-called’? Because nicotine is neither a replacement for something, nor is nicotine being replaced with something, so the name is wrong. It really means cigarette replacement but could equally well, if not more accurately, be called nicotine maintenance therapy (NMT), and that is how I shall refer [...]

In my research on smoking I recently came across a book and a website with the following titles: ‘Smoke-free in 30 days’ and ‘STOP SMOKING! in 28 days’, respectively. Here’s a quote from the latter: ‘Getting hooked doesn’t happen overnight and getting unhooked is best done in the same way: over a period of several days.’ This is [...]

Last year in a little town in New York state I had occasion to visit a friendly neighbourhood pharmacy. There I chanced upon a pamphlet with the inviting title, Let’s Quit Together. In case one might wonder what the ‘quit’ refers to it tells you in the next sentence with a question: ‘Are you ready to quit smoking?’ [...]

So much activity in dealing with the smoking problem is directed towards trying to get smokers to stop. But you have to start doing something before you can stop doing it. In this regard it seems the official policy is to discourage young people from taking up the habit by various means, which according to scientific studies seem [...]

I recently came across an interesting guideline for doctors who are trying to help smokers quit. It’s a publication from 2008 by the US Department of Health and Human Services called Treating tobacco use and dependence. The guideline is not just for any old smokers, mind you, but for ‘smokers unwilling to quit’. Here we go again – [...]

How many centuries spent The sedentary soul In toils of measurement…?       (W B Yeats) This curious concept is examined in a medical paper, the combined efforts of seven authors from Canada and the US, published in May 2016. Their answer: at least thirty. The research leading to this conclusion consisted in carrying out random number telephone surveys [...]

  Do you know what the letters ATTUD stand for? It’s Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence, based in the US. We are further informed from their website that: ATTUD is an organization of providers dedicated to the promotion of and increased access to evidence-based tobacco treatment for the tobacco user. Before we go any [...]

If a doctor were to call himself a tobacco treatment specialist what would you think he does? It’s ambiguous. Is he treating a disease called tobacco, similarly to the way in which a cancer treatment specialist is obviously someone who treats cancer? Or, if you talk of an acupuncture treatment specialist, it’s clearly a practitioner of acupuncture who [...]

One conventional measure of ‘success’ in smoking cessation is the proportion of smokers who, when then have used the X method, are not smoking one year later. For example, many studies show that of smokers who quit using medicinal nicotine (gum or patches), around 16 per cent are still not smoking a year later. Not very impressive but [...]

I have just come across a brilliant feature from the Reader’s Digest: 'The 23 Best Ways to Quit Smoking.' It’s really about hints or tips that might be helpful to would-be quitters. Here are some of them, with my comments: Set a quit date I have written a blog about why this is a bad idea. Write down [...]

These cigarette machines are ubiquitous in Japan. Note the ad for Parliament cigarettes. The attractive models imply that smoking is sexy. The wording says something like ‘vivid, strong menthol, crystal blast’. You can undergo this refreshing experience by crushing the menthol flavour capsule in the filter. The small print at the bottom, covering only about 16 per cent [...]

Curing someone of smoking is easy, in my experience. However, treating alcoholism is a different matter. It’s not difficult to cure alcoholism – it’s impossible. Let me hasten to add that there are many things that can and should be done to help people with an alcohol problem. In this endeavor it’s important to keep in mind an [...]

The photo shows the latest wheeze in smoking cessation for those who have ‘tried everything’: laser treatment. I predict this will be found to be ineffective. […]

Non-smoking restaurants and cafés are becoming more and more ubiquitous (!) in Japan, which, of course, is a good thing. And the Japanese, being on the whole a considerate people, make provision, as far as practicable, for other people's needs. Outside this particular café a bench is provided together with an ashtray, partially filled with earth, for the [...]

Except they don’t. But this is what smokers often say. Let me put it slightly differently: why cigarettes go with a drink – or with anything else you happen to be doing (or not doing) – about every forty minutes of every day if you’re a pack-a-day smoker, or pro rata if you smoke more or fewer cigs [...]

What does the US National Cancer Institute have to say about quitting smoking? On their website there’s a long section titled ‘How To Handle Withdrawal Symptoms and Triggers When You Decide To Quit Smoking’. This implies that you may indeed suffer such symptoms and that ‘triggers’ are also something you will need to be aware of. These are [...]

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) in their 2008 report draw attention to a well-known but nonetheless shocking fact: Products which are known to kill one in every two of their life-long users are available for sale in shops throughout the land. What to do about this scandalous situation? The obvious thing they dismiss: As banning tobacco products [...]

The other night I was eating with a friend in a local restaurant – non-smoking of course –and had occasion to observe my fellow diners. There was a party of what are known in Japan as ‘salarymen’ (company employees), consisting of about ten middle-aged people who were evidently enjoying themselves with good food and drink and animated conversation. [...]

Cancer Research UK, bless their cotton socks, wants Big Tobacco to be obliged to 'cough up' to the tune of £500m, the equivalent of one penny per cigarette sold in the UK. The intention is to make up the current government deficit in health funding and would be used in public health services to help people stop smoking. [...]

Did you know there is a scholarly journal calling itself, indeed, Tobacco Control? The very title shows the wrong-headed approach to the smoking problem: tobacco doesn’t need to be controlled, it needs to be abolished. In a recent edition there is an editorial and a research paper complaining that the full list of ingredients in cigarettes is not [...]

Nearly all stop smoking methods will tell you to pick a date in the near future when you intend to quit. This is a bad idea. Here’s why: First, it reinforces the widely held but mistaken notion that stopping smoking is terribly difficult. You have to prepare yourself for it, as if you're going to take an exam [...]

I stopped smoking more than fifty years ago when I attended a teaching round on the men's chest ward of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London where I trained. Nonetheless, for professional purposes I subscribed to the NHS Smokefree motivational emails. Except they aren’t. This is discussed in my new book, Smoking is a Psychological Problem. Once you’re on [...]

It is extraordinary how the scholarly journal, Tobacco Control, from its curious title to much of the content, continues to be muddle-headed about the tobacco problem. Let me illustrate with an example from the March 2016 edition. In the section labelled ‘Worldwide news and comment’ we learn of allegations against British American Tobacco (BAT). They have been accused [...]

On opening the cover of the august organ Tobacco Control of November 2015, I was confronted with what at first glance looked like an ad for a packet of washing powder. Closer inspection, however, revealed it’s an illiterate puff for 'extra strength gum for enhanced craving relief.' In other words, it’s for chewing gum containing 6mg of the poison [...]

There is an organisation in Britain called the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT). They have put out a short film which is part of a training module called ‘Very Brief Advice on Smoking [Cessation]’ which is aimed at people who want to be smoking cessation counsellors. It’s a very sad film about a young boy [...]