tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7492936269553611858.post3880669432186882294..comments2024-03-18T07:19:40.293-04:00Comments on CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT ENCROACHMENT CITOYENS ANTI GOUVERNEMENT ENVAHISSANT: LES PRODUITS NICOTINIQUES INEFFICACESC.A.G.E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08720876700472441565noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7492936269553611858.post-65215458140956806362012-01-17T20:26:41.519-05:002012-01-17T20:26:41.519-05:00I trust that you do not mind if I comment in Engli...I trust that you do not mind if I comment in English! I can still read French quite well, but the vocabulary is very iffy.<br /><br />I have just read a little of study which you quote. Here is the 'conclusion' as per the abstract:<br /><br /><i>Conclusions: This study finds that persons who have<br />quit smoking relapsed at equivalent rates, whether or not<br />they used NRT to help them in their quit attempts.<br />Cessation medication policy should be made in the larger<br />context of public health, and increasing individual<br />treatment coverage should not be at the expense of<br />population evidence-based programmes and policies.</i><br /><br />Let's just divide that statement into its two main parts:<br /><br />1. Whatever aid people used to quit smoking, they relapsed at the same rate.<br /><br />2. That, as a result of the bad record of NRT, it is necessary to continue, or even increase, persecution.<br /><br />We must note what the conclusion <i>did not</i> say, which should have been that NRT should be abandoned in view of the fact that it is ineffective. Instead, the authors chose to emphasise, illogically, that this is a reason to continue such therapy and, at the same time, tighten the persecutory screw. <br /><br />But note this quote from a subsequent section of the study (next page): <i>Other representative population studies have also found no beneficial effect of the use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) on quitting success or long-term abstinence <b>compared with unaided cessation</b></i>. Note that what this statement DOES NOT say, which is that unaided cessation is far, far more successful! It merely says that NRT is <i>no more</i> successful than just will-power. It does not say, which it should, that will-power is far, far more effective. It seems to me that the authors were trying to edge their bets in order not to upset Tobacco Control. <br /><br />No wonder that Tobacco Control hid this study! It clearly states that NRT is a waste of time and money, since no form of NRT is better than quiting without help of any kind. <br /><br />This bears out my own thinking. Smoking is essentially a <i>habit</i>. As a habit, it is hard to break because, essentially, it is an 'anytime, anywhere' habit. That is, it is an 'all-day-long' habit, with overtones of 'withdrawal symptoms' (of a chemical kind) when a person decides to quit. That is, it might be easy to break the habit of smoking while in an airport waiting for a flight (which I have found easy to do on a temporary basis) on three or four occasions in the year, but much more difficult to break the habit whilst I am writing this. In fact, I am not sure that I could write this if I was not smoking!<br /><br />One day, there will be a reckoning, and it will not be favourable to Tobacco Control.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com