Nicotine is evil.

Walker · Nicotine is evil.

Snus.

I haven't taken any for almost a week now. André, you used to be a mean green smoking machine, but you managed to quit. I know you got help but still. Saturday and Sunday were just... just crazy, Monday was OK and Tuesday-Thursday I actually felt pretty good most of the time. But today, mein Gott, I really feel the abstinence again. Out of curiosity, how long did it take for you to become 'normal' again? I know one guy who lay off snus for three months and then started again. I reckon this will take a while.

Uriel

Most of the people I know who have successfully quit smoking have used drugs to do it -- although they say that you really have to shop around, as some work better than others. (One of my friends said the nicotine gum was so nasty it made her nauseous -- she went right back to cigarettes!)

Deborah

I've read that there are nutritional supplements that are supposed to help ease the pain of withdrawal. Sorry, I can't direct you to any particular website, but it might be worth researching, if you haven't alreay.

Walker

André in Zuid-Afrika · Re: Nicotine is evil.

Walker · Re: Nicotine is evil.

KSa

I just want to announce that on the 1st of January I quitted smoking!

Deborah

Elaine

Walker

That's great, man! You don't need that crap.

Benjamin [inactive]

Well I started smoking on 31st December.

Actually, not really. I was at a Hogmanay party at someone's flat in Edinburgh and they had a shisha (also known as hookah). Some of us smoked it for a while. I'm not quite sure what they'd put in it, but it tasted like apple-scented hand-cream.

(And to be honest, I actually had smoked before then anyway).

André in Zuid-Afrika

André in Zuid-Afrika

KSa

Lazar

Yeah, there are some variations like that which can seem like non-native errors to Americans who aren't familiar with them.

Deborah

I've only seen "quitted" used when it means to leave: She quitted the room.

It's possible that I've seen this example only in British literature.

Uriel

A number of people at my work -- including some very good friends -- have used a medication called Chantix to quit, with pretty remarkable success. One of our doctors has been writing out prescriptions for anyone who's interested. Apparently it works by binding to the nicotine receptors in your brain. You can go ahead and smoke, but without the ability to lock into those receptors, the nicotine gives you no rush at all, so it breaks that positive-feedback loop. Most people taper off from a pack or two a day to a couple of cigarettes a day in a week or two (or so they say), and start going without altogether soon after. My good friend who is quitting this way is very excited -- she's probably been smoking for twenty years or so, and has tried to quit numerous times, using willpower or nicotine gum (which she said was nauseating and quit chewing after one day). Our secretary, who is also on the stuff, says she no longer even has the urge. We have several other people in the business office who've been smoke-free for several months. Closest thing to a miracle cure I've ever seen. No idea what it costs, though -- that might be the fly in the ointment! But they all seem to be able to afford it, or at least are willing to invest. Then again, with all the taxes they slap on cigarettes anymore, there probably isn't much difference in price even if it IS expensive!

André in Zuid-Afrika

Must be similar, or the same, as our Zyban. I used it to stop smoking, and it worked great for me (except that I had to stop deadpan, gived circumstances...). But it certainly helped to repress the urge.

Walker

Here it's called Champix. I read about it some months ago and it seemed like such a miracle cure, that I asked a doctor at work to write me a prescription. It is expensive and it has a bunch of side effects, and that's why she didn't write me that prescription (if you go to your doctor and get a prescription the 'proper way', you get a discount in some cases, apparently).

Sue

Might give that a go.

Benjamin [inactive]

Talking about snus, my Swedish friend randomly gave me one when we were in a pub in Inverness last week. It was kind of weird — it was sort of like having a tea-bag in my mouth, and it gave me a rather large mouth ulcer afterwards.

I do find it strange though that that stuff is banned in all EU countries apart from Sweden. It's drastically less harmful than smoking cigarettes, if only because it does not have any adverse affects on the people around you like passive smoking does.

KSa

Lazar

Wikipedia cites research that indicates that snus is less harmful than cigarettes or chewing tobacco; and the elimination of passive exposure, which is the raison d'être of smoking bans, is undeniable. I think it would be good for smokers to switch to snus as a harm-reduction tactic (or perhaps even a quitting aid).

Benjamin [inactive]

All I can say is that I'd far rather that nicotine addicts used snus than smoked cigarettes. Cigarettes damage your lungs and other people's lungs, whereas snus damages your mouth but has no adverse affects on anybody else. If we have to ban some tobacco products, I think it would make far more sense to ban cigarettes over snus.

Would you, KSa, advocate the criminalisation of everything unhealthy? After all, I live in the land of deep-fried battered pizza. Scotland has the lowest life-expectancy in Western Europe — men in quite a large chunk of Glasgow are lucky if they live past their late 50s. There is also an astonishingly high rate of heart disease here. Of course, this is caused by a range of factors, including smoking and drinking, but a major cause is the extremely unhealthy diets of so many people in this country. Perhaps if the Scottish government adopted an ultra-authoritarian stance, with strict regulations on everything people can and can't eat or drink (including a ban on shortbread), then we'd all be much healthier.

Which to be fair, we might. But I could not support such totalitarian policies.

Walker

Lazar

I stand corrected there.

Deborah

My new downstairs neighbor smokes indoors and it comes into my apartment through the heading vents.

KSa

Deborah

Unfortunately, people can still smoke in their own living quarters.

Walker

That law in California is pretty tough, though, isn't it? Kirk was so excited about it... he told that if you're standing close to a playground, you must be so and so many feet away from it if you want to smoke. Or at least that's what I seem to recall.

KSa

Walker,
Sorry for asking, but:

Walker

KSa

Walker,
My problem is I quite easily forget the films. I have a vague impression I saw it some 10-12 years ago. Isn't it the film in which one guy throws the other to the cement mixer ?

Elaine

Deborah

Uriel

I think snus sounds very similar to snuff, right? Not common in this day and age, but it was once.

Chewing tobacco is very common here, and the constant spitting is just nasty. Although one of my vets used to have a telltale bulge under his lip all the time, and I never saw him spit once. Once people, however, are not that discreet about it. The ubiquitous spit cup that many use as a compromise to not hawking into the carpet is not much better, either.

I tried chewing tobacco once, and I was reeling afterwards. Didn't get sick, but I couldn't stand up! I tried smoking once, too -- coughed up a lung and never had the urge again. I guess nicotine just doesn't agree with me, because other people have told me that they were hooked from their very first cigarette -- once they felt that high, they craved it again.

I am pretty immune to that kind of addiction, I guess -- I've smoked marijuana on occasion, but it was initially just to try it, and later, just to be polite, or to try to see what all the fuss was about. Getting high was an interesting sensation, but not one I had to have over and over again, and I always decline these days. I've done it, and I don't need to do it again. Alcohol has a similar effect on me -- I get drunk and have fun (except when I skip the fun and go straight to feeling sick), but it has no real allure for me. I'll drink once in a while to get a buzz, but not very often.

I was reading an interesting article once that said that some studies suggested that people who were easily addicted naturally had lower levels of certain neurotransmitters in their systems, which made them more susceptible. Of course, other factors besides the chemical ones were acknowledged as well, and it said that previously unaddictive people could be pushed into an addictive state by a confluence of stress, depression, adverse life events, and opportunity -- so it's a complicated subject.

Update on my friends on the Chantix -- all have remained on it, and most have moved into a non-smoking phase. Turns out that with our insurance, it costs $40. One of our coworkers, for whom money was so tight that she couldn't even afford that, was given the $40 by our nursing director, who is on it herself after 25 years of smoking. She wants everyone to quit, so she just went to our CFO and demanded $40 out of petty cash as a one-time gift, don't ask why. He didn't, and she got her money, and that coworker is now working on her first week of no smoking at all. I'm impressed!

Nicotine is evil.

Re: Nicotine is evil.

Re: Nicotine is evil.