I stopped smoking more than fifty years ago when I attended a teaching round on the men's chest ward of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London where I trained. Nonetheless, for professional purposes I subscribed to the NHS Smokefree motivational emails. Except they aren’t. This is discussed in my new book, Smoking is a Psychological Problem. Once you’re on [...]
It is extraordinary how the scholarly journal, Tobacco Control, from its curious title to much of the content, continues to be muddle-headed about the tobacco problem. Let me illustrate with an example from the March 2016 edition. In the section labelled ‘Worldwide news and comment’ we learn of allegations against British American Tobacco (BAT). They have been accused [...]
On opening the cover of the august organ Tobacco Control of November 2015, I was confronted with what at first glance looked like an ad for a packet of washing powder. Closer inspection, however, revealed it’s an illiterate puff for 'extra strength gum for enhanced craving relief.' In other words, it’s for chewing gum containing 6mg of the poison [...]
There is an organisation in Britain called the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT). They have put out a short film which is part of a training module called ‘Very Brief Advice on Smoking [Cessation]’ which is aimed at people who want to be smoking cessation counsellors. It’s a very sad film about a young boy [...]
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 to quit, some [...]
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 or help reduce [...]
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 Stop Smoking Now. [...]
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 is the toughest [...]
If you're a smoker trying, that is, failing, to quit, 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? What is meant, of course, is cigarette replacement: cigarettes are [...]