Philip Morris Int. CEO: Cigs not that hard to quit

[mostlyclassics]

About a month ago, I posted this on a pipe smokers forum:

There is a certain proportion of the population for whom nicotine is a palliative against asthma, much like the active compounds in a rescue inhaler.

I was told this by two different doctors (one who practiced in the Chicagoland area and the other whose practice was in Appleton, Wisconsin) in the late 1960's.

Apparently, I'm part of that population.

In 1953, at the age of five, I was taught how to smoke a cigarette by an Italian pediatrician in Genoa, Italy. This was common medical practice in Italy at the time, as the first course to subdue asthma, especially in children. The cig almost instantly stopped my severe childhood asthma. Needless to say, my American parents were appalled and quickly switched doctors for my sister and me.

When I've tried to quit cigarettes in the past, I've been kinda okay despite the ever-increasing nic craving -- until the asthma sets in after a few days. Then I'm right back on cigarettes.

Pipes I smoke for the marvelous flavors, but I can't smoke enough bowlsful to ward off the asthma, and inhaling pipe tobacco presents its own problems. But three months ago, I pretty much quit cigarettes (from three packs per day to three or four single cigarettes) by "smoking" a personal vaporizer using nicotine-spiked liquid.

There was lots of scoffing [on this pipe smoking forum] about a year ago over that ridiculous video showing people puffing on first-generation e-cigarettes. What's available now is vastly superior and worth checking out.

I hasten to add that these devices are not -- repeat not -- a means or method to stop smoking. They cannot be marketed as such without FDA approval, and the FDA won't grant such approval without years and years and hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the manufacturers of these devices in laboratory tests.

 

[Vocalek]

Very interesting! And yes, we do not promote them as a "smoking cessation" product. They are a less harmful (than inhaling smoke) alternative way to take in nicotine.

Unfortunately the antis pre-empted the term "smoking cessation" to mean "nicotine cessation". Thus there is a lot of confusion.

I now abstain from smoking, but not from nicotine. And, like you, no asthma attacks. I still have some allergies, but nothing like the several months of raw upper lip that I suffered through when I stopped all nicotine intake.