Patches, gum boost smokers' chances
of quitting, researchers conclude
March 17,1996
Web posted at: 12:00 p.m. ESTFrom Correspondent Carl Rochelle
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Most smokers who try to quit go "cold turkey." But researchers looking into the oft-ignored question of the best way to quit smoking now say that cutting off abruptly may be the worst way to do it.
"Every year about 15 to 20 million people try quitting, most of them by cold turkey," said Jack Henningfield of the Addiction Research Center. "Only a few of them make it. Two out of three go back to smoking within two days. So cold turkey is not an effective way to do it."
Scientist say using a nicotine patch or gum is a better and much healthier way to quit smoking. (70K AIFF sound or 70K WAV sound)
A Washington conference on nicotine and tobacco research concluded that there is little hazard to using such medication, even for long periods.
Scientists also dismissed the notion pushed by the tobacco industry that smoking has any benefits.
"They don't know that whatever benefits they're getting from smoking, they've got a one-in-two chance of prematurely dying a miserable death," Henningfield said. "Whereas with the medication it looks closer to one in a million."
The tobacco industry has had a rough week. The first crack in an almost solid wall of denial by tobacco companies that they have any responsibility for smokers' illnesses came Friday when the Liggett Company agreed to repay more than $10 million in Medicaid bills to five states for treatment of smokers.
Liggett will pay five percent of its pre-tax profits into a program helping people kick the smoking habit. The company also promised to no longer challenge federal rules regulating its marketing practices.
One of the most crucial points of the debate regards advertising to children under 18 years old.
"We care about the kids of this country and we know that 90 percent of the people who start smoking start smoking before they're 18 years old," said Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore. "That scares us, because one in three of them are going to die from lung cancer and heart disease."
Liggett, the sixth largest tobacco company in the United States, admitted no wrongdoing, but doctors think the message is clear and many believe that the settlement has broken the united legal front of the tobacco industry.
"Nobody ever thought there would be a crack in the dam in the tobacco industry," Moore said. "We now think they have broken the code of silence.
"The key thing that has occurred is the development of the idea that nicotine is a drug and that cigarettes are a drug delivery system," said Dr. Neal Benowitz of the University of California.
The Liggett settlement may have long-term repercussions. Not only is it the first time in 40 years of lawsuits that any tobacco company has agreed to put out money, but part of that money also will go for programs to help smokers quit.
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