In support of the suggestion that e-cigarettes (‘vaping’) should be available on the NHS, there is a clip shown on the BBC Radio 5 Alive program (19 August 2015) featuring Professor Kevin Fenton from Public Health England. He points out that “more than 2.5 million smokers have already purchased their own e-cigarettes…some are using them […]
Continue reading
According to an article in the British Medical Journal (10 July 2015), smoking may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia, a severe type of mental illness called psychosis. An association between cigarettes and psychotic symptoms has been noted before, but is this because patients take up smoking as a way to try to counteract symptoms […]
Continue reading
With such a billing, who might this be? It’s Professor Robert West, a psychologist and self-styled ‘world expert on smoking and addiction’ who thinks unless e-cigarettes are made available we’re condemning smokers to death (BBC interview, April 2014). He published a book in 2013 with the intriguing title The SmokeFree Formula, A Revolutionary Way to […]
Continue reading
There’s a stop smoking promotion by NHS England called ‘Stoptober’, presumably because this scheme was launched in the month of October. Stoptober is the conventional approach – discouraging. They seem to recognize this fact and try to make a joke of it: Welcome to Day 1 of Stoptober. Now, it’s fair to say that this […]
Continue reading
If you are a smoker trying, i.e., failing, to stop, what help is out there? The orthodox approach, promulgated by the medical profession, is called, curiously, nicotine replacement therapy. Does this mean nicotine is a replacement for something or is the nicotine going to be replaced with something? Of course, it is understood that what […]
Continue reading