In the world of nicotine marketing, January 1, 2006 will likely mark extremes in two regards. It will in all probability be the day of the year when the fewest cigarettes are smoked and also the day when the most replacement nicotine is used.

If you successfully dodge the flood of NRT commercials this last week of the year you likely don’t spend much time watching television. At least in that regard, not watching TV might be the healthiest thing a smoker contemplating a New Year’s quit or an ex-smoker can do.

With more than 50% of all smokers having now tried replacement nicotine at least once, and over 95% having relapsed within a year, you‘ll likely notice a different tone to the commercials. They’ll be bashing cold turkey quitting harder than ever but that’s nothing new. What’s new is that for the first time pharmaceutical companies are beginning to attack smoking.

Think about it. When have you ever heard an NRT commercial tell you that smoking was bad for you. Probably never. The tobacco industry and pharmaceutical industry have long had an agreement not to attack one and other. In fact, until last year the Philip Morris web site was openly asserting that the key to successful quitting was to buy medicine (pharmaceutical grade nicotine) and use it.
But recently I’ve noticed that Philip Morris has demoted NRT a notch or two and GlaxoSmithKline actually issued a press release on December 5th that, aside from blasting cold turkey (my rebuttal - GlaxoSmithKline Attacks Cold Turkey Quitting ), for the first time actually attacked smoking as unhealthy (see GSK's press release ).

When Joel titled this thread I doubt he foresaw just how messy these nicotine sales messages could get, but then again, knowing Joel, maybe not. I think we're about to hear some rather wild assertions. Keep your ears open and if you are quick enough to jot down the commercials assertions we'd fit well in this thread.
What we might want to keep in mind is that all nicotine comes from the exact same plant and that it probably isn't unusual for both the pharmaceutical and tobacco industry to be buying from the same farmers.

For visitors looking in, there have only been two published nicotine patch studies looking at success rates for second time patch users and in the first (Tonnesen 1993) 100% relapsed to smoking within 6 months and in the second (Gourlay 1995) 98.4% of study participants relapsed within 6 months.

Still just one rule guarantees success to all ... no nicotine just one day at a time, Never Take Another Puff, Chew, Patch, Pinch or Lozenge.
John (Gold x6)
Taken from freedom from tobacco now

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