Good points, CG and that was exactly where I was leading with the article. People smoke for a REASON. Many just have addictive personalities - I'm one of them. Both alcoholism, drug abuse and eating disorders (over-eating) run in my family. so does depression. I often wonder how many smokers would be using a much worse drug if they weren't using nicotine/tobacco.
The irony of "take pills or patches" is that those products aren't approved for long-term use (although about 40% of smokers who use gum/lozenges don't wean off of them, they SWITCH to them.) The pharmaceutical companies recent petitioned the FDA to allow them to market their products as a long-term alternative to tobacco. This came shortly on the heels of pharma companies writing a statement to the FDA encouraging it to remove tobacco lozenges OFF of the market. Seriously, the Nicorette mini and the tobacco Orbs (lozenges) are nearly identical!
Prohibition is a good comparision. I was speaking with Bill Godshall yesterday and he mentioned he was reading a book about Prohibition in the U.S. It started out as the Temperence Movement - which is about REDUCTION not prohibition. He said the movement reduced alcohol consumption by 85%! Then the prohibitionists snuck in and took over and said 85% wasn't good enough. Next thing we know we have the biggest crime wave the U.S. has ever seen!
In sweden, where snus use is accepted, they have the lowest smoking rates in the EU. It's slightly higher in women because they haven't embraced oral tobacco as much and I suspect it's because women don't feel it's very feminine to have a lump in their cheek. But imagine if tobacco companies were allowed to tell the truth about their lozenges and strips being 99% safer than smoking - most women would be more comfortable with the more delicate products and may use those along with e-cigarettes. smoking rates for men in the U.S. used to be nearly 60% and now we are down to 20%. By embracing harm reduction products and telling the truth about them, that could probably be cut in half!
But by insisting on demonizing even smokeless options, many smokers who cannot or will not quit simply think they may as well keep smoking because there are no safer options. They think the choice is "quit or die." Since life without smoking/nicotine is completely miserable for them, they figure they may as well enjoy their short life while they can - never knowing that there are better options that don't require them to have to suffer.
Moonrose is right, though - they will never outlaw tobacco. Even the antis make too much money off of it. They just want to profit while making tobacco users as miserable as possible! lol But if people find out the truth about smokeless options, they have no reason to keep smoking and no need for expensive smoking cessation products. Yep - follow the money.
My article is more about the diehard prohibitionists who think that the means justify the end and don't seem to have looked beyond achieving their goal of prohibition. Their objection to reduced harm smokeless options is based on then premise that prohibition and abstinence is the ultimate goal. Complete abstinence from all drugs is never going to happen, so they need to change that goal. Take away nicotine/tobacco/smoking and people WILL seek out alternate drugs for relief. The question is will those available options be better or worse? Of course, in their minds nothing is worse than smoking. But how many people picked up a cigarette, found it did the trick so never picked up a crack pipe?
8-o
