Cigarette or Drug

[AndrewDavid]

Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco—including cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, and chewing tobacco—contain the addictive drug nicotine. Nicotine is readily absorbed into the bloodstream when a tobacco product is chewed, inhaled, or smoked.

[Angela]

[ShakaCthulu]

Originally Posted by Nestran

Well I only got through half the article because I have a weak stomach but from what I can see is that they found a 47% quit rate at 6 weeks with a combination of the no nic cigs and NRT lozenges.

What's with the constant 6-week figure?

Show me 18 weeks to 6 months to a year. Anyone but the heaviest smokers can give it up for six measly weeks. Let's see the success rates for longer periods, when some stressful situation inevitably occurs. I've quit for a few weeks several times.

[IANAN]

Originally Posted by AndrewDavid

Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco—including cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, and chewing tobacco—contain the addictive drug nicotine. Nicotine is readily absorbed into the bloodstream when a tobacco product is chewed, inhaled, or smoked.

Really ?!

I had no idea cigarettes and other forms of tobacco had addicting substances in them...

[LaceyUnderall]

Originally Posted by ShakaCthulu

What's with the constant 6-week figure?

Show me 18 weeks to 6 months to a year. Anyone but the heaviest smokers can give it up for six measly weeks. Let's see the success rates for longer periods, when some stressful situation inevitably occurs. I've quit for a few weeks several times.

It's because they know damn straight that after 6 months, the NRT's stop working! Did you notice on the recent test done in Wisconsin that they found using the lozenge in conjunction with the patch offers you the best success rate at 6 months? Heck yeah! That's a lot of nicotine!!!

(Which... I won't even go into the thread of it's own topic that on ALL NRT boxes it says don't use other nicotine products with this product so that is actually a VERY dangerous study to release.)

The end use date situation is an argument against the ecig being an NRT. Will it be required that the ecig have an end use? If so, and this goes RX only first, what happens in six months when you can't stop using the ecig? You can't get a prescription and then go back to cigarettes? Doctors rarely go against manufacturers documentation because if someone has an issue and sues, then the doctor can easily turn the fault to the pharm company who HAS the money to pay off said patient. Plus, Doctors who go against manufacturers warnings can also get into issues with medical malpractice.

The point of an NRT is to ween you off of nicotine. So IF a company wants to sell the ecig to ween you off of nicotine, which is the actual addiction that is being treated (the brain disease of nicotine addiction), then an end use date would be needed, clinical trials etc. However, if the intent is to smoke this for as long as you want just like a tobacco cigarette, well, no end use date is necessary and technically, that's not an NRT by the FDA's current definition.

It's silly... six months. Looking back after a full year of not using nicotine of any kind, whether you are "smoking" a non-nicotine liquid or not... THAT'S quitting nicotine addiction. But that's hardly "quitting smoking". (Smoking is an action... not a disease according to the CDC)

[martha1014]

If I read this correctly it stated you use the VLN ciagrette which has a reducted level of nicotine and the best way to quit smoking would be to smoke this cigarettes in conjunction with other NRP. This defeats the purpose of the low nicotine cigarettes if you are going to add another nicotine along with it.

Is this what I am reading?

[martha1014]

Yep that is what I read:

Reduced-nicotine cigarettes" (containing a blend of very low nicotine tobacco and conventional tobacco) and VLN cigarettes, all containing Vector 21-41, were among the study materials of a successful FDA-reviewed phase II clinical trial for smoking cessation. Use of these cigarettes in combination with nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) was more effective than use of NRT alone in achieving 4 weeks of continuous abstinence, and use of these cigarettes without NRT yielded an abstinence rate similar to that of NRT (Becker et al. 2008).

Does that make any since?

[Antebellum]

Hi, Martha,

Yes, it does make sense. The NRT supplies the nicotine and the VLN cigarette handles the other parts of the habit. In other words, both work together better than either works by itself. And either, by inference, does not work at all well by itself.

[martha1014]

I for one could not afford this. Buying cigarettes and NRT. How can this be any different than actual smoking.

[IANAN]

Originally Posted by LaceyUnderall

It's because they know damn straight that after 6 months, the NRT's stop working! Did you notice on the recent test done in Wisconsin that they found using the lozenge in conjunction with the patch offers you the best success rate at 6 months? Heck yeah! That's a lot of nicotine!!!

(Which... I won't even go into the thread of it's own topic that on ALL NRT boxes it says don't use other nicotine products with this product so that is actually a VERY dangerous study to release.)

In order to get them approved they had to lower the dosages so that the NRT itself wouldn't be addictive. The FDA Approved inhaler delivers about 12% of the Nicotine of a full flavor cig.... Doubling NRTs would give a higher dose (Closer to what they were getting by smoking) and the gum or lozenge would spike the dose closer to those levels during strong cravings.

We are also forgetting about the other alkaloids in tobacco, like the harmala alkaloids, which are MOA inhibitors..

And then we have delivery methods-- e-cig nic is absorbed in the upper portions of the respiratory tract, gums and lozenges through the skin in the mouth, Nicotrol (The inhaler) through the lining of the mouth, the patch- through the skin, and tobacco which is through the lungs , mouth lining, and upper respiratory system. It effects how fast the nic is available to the body... The patch designed to give you a steady low dose all day long- where as smoking hits you (Highest levels of nic in your blood) at around 14 min, e-cigs about 19.5 min, and the Nicotrol at 30 mins.

These low nic cigs are probably likely to be addictive as they most likely contain the other alkaloids in tobacco still.

Congress, the ANTI-Smoking groups, and the FDA ares so obsessed about Nic that they have missed over a decade of research that was looking at MOAIs + Nic as the possible cause of the severe addiction.