PRESS RELEASE – NICOTINE FIGHTS BACK14 May 2010If you’re a smoker you need to contact Allen Carr’s Easyway now. If you can comprehend that the government, encouraged and abetted by the medical and scientific establishment, is set to ramp up the annual multi-million pound campaigns designed purely to keep you hooked on …nicotine for the rest of your life, at your own expense, swelling the treasury’s coffers ad infinitum – you’ll realise – the sooner you escape from this nicotine trap – the better.If you want to make an informed decision – please read on….A story appeared in today’s INDEPENDENT newspaper reporting that the Royal College of Physicians have called for “safer nicotine delivery systems/products�� to be made widely available to replace cigarettes and enable addicts to remain addicted in the long term.This is a link to the full story:http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style … 31864.htmlThese are the main points from this story – perhaps you sense where the medical & scientific establishment are going with this? It reads like an advertisement for nicotine. Allen Carr’s Easyway organisation absolutely reject many of the main points. Our comments are in [brackets] below:• Nicotine is largely harmless [incorrect]• Cigarettes are lethal [correct]• The search is on for ways to deliver the pleasure without the risks [nicotine does not provide any pleasure]• A device that delivers nicotine quickly, efficiently and safely could earn a fortune [correct]• The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) suggest that, with a concerted effort, smoking could be eliminated within 20 years [incorrect, firstly, wasn’t that what the smoking bans were supposed to achieve? Secondly, it could be achieved far quicker than 20 years if smokers were provided with an effective means of quitting via the NHS]• Two things would have to happen, the college said i) curbs on smoking would have to be strengthened, principally by ramping up taxes on tobacco ii) more importantly, access to nicotine in other, safer, forms has to be greatly increased [incorrect – this is just an indication that the hundreds of millions of pounds spent on the government’s smoking cessation programme has been a complete waste or that the strategy was always intended to be the first phase of a systematic, misleading, process of converting smokers into long term users of other addictive nicotine products}• The tobacco industry are on the case. [you bet they are] This week, the Marlboro cigarette empire Altria bought the USA’s biggest maker of chewing tobacco, UST, for $10.4bn (£5.8bn). The deal confirms the tobacco industry’s interest in diversifying out of cigarettes into “smokeless” products. UST makes Skoal – tea bag-like pouches of tobacco that are held between the cheek and gum, allowing nicotine to be absorbed. British American Tobacco is also investing heavily in the search for safer ways to deliver nicotine. BAT paid £2bn to take control of the Swedish company ST, which makes Snus – also pouches of tobacco for sucking.• Evidence suggests that sucking a pouch of tobacco is 90 per cent less harmful than inhaling cigarette smoke [what evidence?] But the products are banned in the EU on the grounds that they are carcinogenic, and that to replace one carcinogen with another, albeit one less lethal, is unwise.• Investigations are under way into alternative ways of delivering nicotine that will satisfy the most hardened of addicts [nicotine does not satisfy]. As more smokers give up, those who puff on are the ones who require most support to quit. Nicotine gum and patches won’t cut it; these are addicts who need the “hit” that only a lungful of smoke supplies [we presume they mean those smokers for whom NRT hasn’t worked. That’s most smokers then]
• Nicotine is the closest we are likely to get to the perfect drug [incorrect]• Its effects are diverse; it stimulates, calms [how can it do both of those things? Think about it} and enhances feelings of pleasure [no it doesn’t] but has few side effects. Its great advantage over other drugs is that its effects are mild. It is pleasurable [no it isn’t] only within a narrow range of concentrations in the blood. That is what makes it safe [where is the scientific evidence that says it’s safe?]• A device that delivers nicotine quickly, efficiently and safely could earn a fortune [you bet – drug pushers always make lots of money]• Regulations on the sale of medicinal nicotine are so tight that they keep prices high – seven days’ worth of nicotine patches costs £17 – and the development of innovative products low [an innovative product would be one that cures the addiction to nicotine and where has the phrase “medicinal nicotine�� come from? My Collins Gem Dictionary describes nicotine as “poison�� not medicine!]Professor John Britton, consultant respiratory physician and chief author of the Royal College of Physicians report said “The ideal product would be a nicotine inhaler like an asthma inhaler that delivered a hit of nicotine as close as possible to the experience of smoking a cigarette. The makers of nicotine gum patches don’t want to do it and the regulatory restrictions make it difficult to get it on to the market. There is no competition. That is why we need a Nicotine Regulatory Authority.” [Britton is also a board member of ASH and appears to be in favour of opening up the nicotine industry]• Nicotine patches and chewing gums available on prescription and, now, sold over the counter are strictly regulated medicinal products designed for short-term use by people trying to quit. They do not deliver the hit required to satisfy hardened smokers [by “hardened addicts we presume they mean those smokers for whom NRT hasn’t worked. That’s most smokers then]• What is needed is a medicinal nicotine product designed not as a short-term crutch to support the quitter, but for long-term use as part of a “harm reduction” approach [what is being described is not a ‘medicinal nicotine product’ it’s a new vehicle to deliver a highly addictive, poisonous drug] This idea is backed by the Royal College of Physicians and by Ash, the antismoking charity [Britton is also a board member of ASH] but it causes disquiet among some public health experts who blanch at the prospect of condoning nicotine dependency.• Nicotine is, if anything, less harmful than caffeine – if it carries less risk than a cup of coffee, where’s the problem in making it freely available in a more attractive form? [what scientific evidence exists to support this claim?]• There are signs that the Government may be willing to listen. Close readers of its cancer reform strategy, published last year, noted that the Department of Health said it would consult on measures “to reduce the significant harm to health caused by smoking for those who are addicted to nicotine and not able to quit altogether”.• Britton, who is the head of the Department of Public Health at the University of Nottingham [and a Board Member of ASH] says: “If these people can be encouraged to use a safer product instead, the impact on public health
would be huge. If we end up with a society in which a lot of people use a safe nicotine product every day, so what?”Allen Carr’s Easyway’s stance on this issue:So, the medical and scientific establishment, who for years have endorsed the use of Nicotine as a cure for nicotine addiction, encouraging governments to invest hundreds of millions of pounds each year in smoking cessation programmes based entirely on the use of nicotine as a means of quitting smoking, have changed their minds.Allen Carr’s Easyway organisation said they were wrong – THERE IS NOW NO DOUBT – WE WERE RIGHT TO DO SO.Now, the same medical and scientific establishment are saying that nicotine won’t cure smoking unless the addicts remain addicted to nicotine in the long term, in other words, for the rest of their lives.By “hardened addicts�� we can only presume that they are referring to those people who have attempted to quit by using NRT and failed, in other words most smokers.One gets the impression that the medical and scientific establishment are making this up as they go along.John Britton’s comment that, “If we end up with a society in which a lot of people use a safe nicotine product every day, so what?” understates the situation somewhat by a careful and selective use of words. What he is actually saying is
“If we end up with a society in which a lot of people remain addicted to nicotine for the rest of their lives, so what?”So what? SO WHAT? John Britton obviously has no understanding or appreciation of the psychological damage caused to a person who is an addict. He clearly has no understanding of the harm and hardship caused to, not only the addict, but to the addict’s family, who – in some user groups – go without basic food staples in order for the addict to fund their addiction.The feature also appears to state, no doubt prompted by Britton, that long term addiction to nicotine is actually safer than long term addiction to caffeine. On what basis does the newspaper or Britton make this claim? What scientific evidence exists to support this claim?The newspaper appears to suggest that nicotine provides both a stimulant effect and a calming effect. This is quite impossible. Think about it for a moment. It also claims that nicotine enhances pleasure. This is also quite incorrect.Does John Britton, The Independent, or their journalist Jeremy Laurance, receive funding from the pharmaceutical industry or the tobacco industry, both of whom have a vested interest in maintaining addiction to nicotine? Jeremy Laurance writes like a poster boy for the nicotine industry seemingly inventing benefits for nicotine which simply do not exist.Allen Carr’s Easyway organisation have always maintained that the nicotine industry in the form of tobacco and pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in maintaining addiction to nicotine and that it was this vested interest which was behind so called Nicotine Replacement Therapy – THERE IS NOW NO DOUBT THAT WE WERE RIGHT.The medical and scientific establishment continue to ignore solutions to the smoking problem such as Allen Carr’s Easyway and now appear to be “bailing out�� from a “cure solution�� entirely. In a neat sidestep – policy appears to be moving from attempts to cure nicotine addiction to maintaining nicotine addiction long term (that means for the entire lifetime of the addict).This is a step which will no doubt appeal to governments around the world who must be rubbing their hands at the prospect of tax revenues from an array of so called “safer nicotine delivery products” as they replace cigarettes. What greater incentive for governments to phase out the sale of cigarettes – safe in the knowledge that the nicotine industry will continue to supply addicts, generate huge tax revenues, and take the cost burden of nicotine products such as gum and patches out of health budgets and firmly back to being the poor addict’s own responsibility. The attitude will be “They want the drug – they can pay for it”.If you’re a smoker you need to contact Allen Carr’s Easyway now – if you can comprehend that the government, encouraged and abetted by the medical and scientific establishment, is set to ramp up the annual multi-million pound campaigns designed purely to keep you hooked on nicotine for the rest of your life, at your own expense, swelling the treasury’s coffers ad infinitum – the sooner you escape from this nicotine trap – the better.As is the practise of all accomplished drug pushers – the addicts will first be tempted by ‘freebies’. These will continue to be provided at the tax payers expense via the NHS (after all they’ve been in the role of ‘the pusher’ for years now) but after the initial period of transfer – the addict will have to pay their own way.It is clear that the growing momentum towards so called “safer nicotine delivery systems” will soon include the recommendation that our children be encouraged to START using these nicotine products on the basis that they are less harmful than the children being tempted to smoke cigarettes. NICOTINE CANDY anyone?Allen Carr’s Easyway repeats its call for smokers to be provided with a popular, effective, and proven means of stopping smoking which is inexpensive, doesn’t involve the use of drugs, is perfectly safe, and has no side effects. Such a method has been available over the past 25 years…and has been ignored and attacked by the medical and scientific establishment….it’s called Allen Carr’s Easyway To Stop Smoking.If you’re a smoker – you need to call us for help. If you have an understanding of what the medical and scientific establishment have in mind for you – the sooner you get free from nicotine – the better. Call 1890 37 9929 to contact your nearest clinic, or click this link tobook online: http://www.allencarr.ie/quit-smokingIf you’re the media – for further comment or interviews on this issue contact Allen Carr’s Easyway Press Office 01 4999010, brenda@allencarr.ie
