There are currently 1.1 – 1.4 billion smokers and tobacco users in the world and about 4.9 million of them will die this year from smoking and tobacco related diseases. Tobacco IS NOT just another Consumer Product .This misconception would have to go down in history as one of the most successful product marketing shams. Why? How is it that a product can be marketed as giving flavour and satisfaction, when what you really get is addiction, sickness and poverty.
Tobacco is one of the few legal substances available in stores as a ‘consumer product’ that will kill or harm when used as intended. Wow! Forgive me if I sound a bit cynical towards the tobacco industry. Three thousand kids become new smokers every day. I’m more in shock than cynical!
I believe that anyone can quit smoking if they choose, even without the use of Nicotine Replacement Therapy products. This statement may seem like a slap in the face for the giant NRT companies, but I’m sorry it’s true. Let me make another statement, ‘Nicotine Addiction is the World’s Greatest Deception’ and every smoker and tobacco user falls for the same lie.
I have examined the link between the ‘emotional gradualisation’ and the physiological rewiring of the brain from nicotine. The gradualisation process for most smokers is the product of a gradual numbing of the emotions to the point where our responses are slowly hardened to the consequences of smoking related disease. Even when facing death. In short anti-smoking emotional fear tactics do not work effectively for all smokers. Do people really take any notice of cigarette packet warning labels? I didn’t.
The bottom line is this…tobacco does kill. Smokers and tobacco users need urgent help to break the chains of the nicotine addiction. Tobacco reform laws and increased tobacco taxes will undoubtedly impose a certain amount of tobacco control.
However this will inadvertently cause unnecessary emotional trauma for many smokers being forced to stop smoking without access to comprehensive educational programs. Educational programs are essential for smokers to LEARN how to overcome the many internal and external psychological influences associated with nicotine addiction.
The multi-million dollar NRT industry, which seems to be riding very nicely on the back of the trillion dollar tobacco market, seems to target smokers and tobacco users with a very narrow medical approach, and as Alan I. Leshner Ph.D. Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) once quoted “Science has also shown that treating addiction with medications alone is not nearly as effective as when coupled with a behavioral approach.” [source NIDA]
The world is facing a major health epidemic as a result of smoking and tobacco related diseases. Over 450,000 people will die this year in the US alone from these diseases. These are very serious issues and my soap box plea is that tobacco is not thought of as ‘just another consumer product’, it is the source of the world’s greatest deception.
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