Shouldn’t a product that causes so much death and disease be subject to tough regulation to protect consumers? Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Today, tobacco products are among the least regulated. They’re exempt from basic health protections that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) applies to other consumer products, such as food, drugs, cosmetics and even dog food. The FDA can regulate a box of macaroni and cheese, but not a pack of cigarettes.

The tobacco companies take advantage of this lack of regulation to do many harmful things. They market their deadly products in ways that attract children, deceive consumers about the harm their products cause and resist changes that could make their products less harmful.

Congress can end this special protection for Big Tobacco by passing legislation to give the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. The public health community strongly supports identical, bipartisan bills that have been introduced in Congress to give the FDA this authority:

S. 625 sponsored by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and John Cornyn (R-TX). 
H.R. 1108 sponsored by Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Tom Davis (R-VA). 
 

We need to quit telling people "this is the hardest 
thing you'll ever do!" or that "nicotine is more 
addictive than heroin!" It's NOT....it's mostly 
mental. For once it's TRUE that it's "all in our 
heads".  How I wish I could help all of you quit 
smoking. I'm SO happy I quit and I'm saving SO 
much money :) and my Grandkids say I don't 
stink any more! .......Dee

I am always amazed that medical researchers overlook the vital role that expectation can play in drug effectiveness and drug dependency. For example, people who intentionally ingest psychoactive mushrooms typically report positive experiences, while those who eat them accidentally often rush to emergency rooms convinced that they are dying. The same psychoactive substances often produce radically different effects.

But researchers are finally paying attention to people’s expectations. A study published in the April 5, 2006, Neuropsychopharmacology found that when people expect to smoke cigarettes in the near future, external cues - such as watching someone else smoke - have a powerful effect on the brain. Twenty smokers were divided into two groups: “expectant” ones who could smoke right after the test, and “non-expectant” ones who could smoke only four hours after the test. While watching videotapes of people smoking, the “expectant” group showed activity in parts of the brain devoted to arousal, attention and cognitive control. In the “non-expectant” group, there was almost no response to the smoking cues.

In other words, people in the expectant group were more likely to relapse because they expected an opportunity to do so. 

The implications are many, but one important one is that doctors must be very careful to create positive expectations in their patients. In this litigious age, many physicians feel compelled to run through every possible disaster to avoid a lawsuit, but overdoing this can be very destructive. If your physician specializes in lowering expectations, I suggest firing him or her and finding one who understands the healing power of positive suggestion. 

And by the way, if you smoke, stop.
 

I'm so excited that I'm creating this page to share with you how I quit smoking after 43 years! As of the day I'm writing this (3/30/05), I am 30 days completely smoke free!! If you are familiar with this site, you know that I've been trying to bring awareness to women's health issues, particularly with menopause and other middle age maladies, but you probably didn't know that I was addicted to cigarettes and constantly trying to find a way to quit.

I started smoking at the young age of 14. I was a freshman in High School and my best friend and I discovered sample packs of cigarettes in our mailboxes one day. We found them before the parents, so they never knew they had been sent. This was obviously during the time that the tobacco companies had no responsibility whatsoever to keep their deadly, addictive products out of the reach of children.

Now, 43 years later, I'm so grateful that I was able to quit before I ended up with emphysema or lung cancer. I'm probably not out of the woods yet, but at least I haven't added to any existing damage in the last 30 days. I haven't had health insurance for the past 10 years of self-employment, so I'm extremely lucky that I haven't had any  major illnesses and hope and pray there's nothing lurking in the background. I will be 57 on April 27 and I've made a promise to myself to use the next 3 years to get my life and health into the best shape ever! Fit by 60!

I will be adding to this page with updates on my progress (and probably frustrations) as a non-smoker, along with links and support information that might help you quit also.  I've already added a thread for this topic on my message board and you can post your feelings and comments there whenever you feel like it.

Cathy, it took me 43 years to be able to quit, so you're not the only one who can't find that "something" that makes a person just quit. Ok, I'll try this on you...you mentioned that your divorce is what caused you to start smoking again, right? Now, what is the worst thing that could happen to make you never pick up a cigarette again? Truly, what do you think it would take? Would you be like that woman who had her voice box cut out from cancer and she was still smoking through the hole in her throat? Or would it be just a diagnosis of a major illness that would make you quit? With me it ended up to be the fear of GETTING that diagnosis and I couldn't rationalize my smoking any more. There was nothing logical about what I was doing and I was at the point where I didn't want to smoke any more. All I'm saying is that it takes something different for all of us and as long as you keep talking to yourself about wanting to quit, you will get to that point and you'll do it.  Just keep telling yourself "I can do it, the time is almost here, one of these days I'll be a non-smoker", and it will come sooner than you know it. Just keep being honest with yourself......

Here are some of the free government sites that are loaded with information:

• United States Department of Health and Human Services
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
• Office on Smoking and Health

"We've uncovered a mechanism to explain why premature ovarian failure occurs following exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment," says principal investigator Jonathan Tilly, PhD, of the MGH Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology. "Women who smoke undergo menopause earlier, and we've correlated this with exposure to a class of chemicals in tobacco smoke that accelerate the death of egg cells in the ovaries." Read the full article

The best way for smokers to lower their risk of lung cancer is to quit, period, but vitamin C supplements may help as well. Researchers at Oregon State University recently found that taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily increased protective levels of vitamin E in smokers’ lungs. Smoking can deplete the levels of vitamin E that protect lung membranes and defend against the production of destructive free radicals generated by tobacco smoke. In a study published in the February 15, 2006 issue of Free Radical Biology and Medicine, the Oregon team reported that vitamin C could reduce the depletion of one form of vitamin E by 45 percent. They also found that vitamin C helped protect the function and levels of vitamin E found elsewhere in the body. Another study, reported in the February 15, 2006 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that vitamin E reduced the risk of prostate cancer among men who smoke but didn’t affect risks among non-smokers.

Sources: http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=531007
http://jncicancerspectrum.oxfordjournals.org 

Evidently, there's a couple of new products (drugs) that will be on the market soon to help curb the cravings for cigs AND for food. If it works, that will be great.  Here's a news report:

FDA puts smokers' drug on fast track 

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Pfizer Inc. said Wednesday its experimental treatment for quitting smoking has been granted fast-track approval status by the U.S Food and Drug Administration. 

If the review process begins in January, as expected, Pfizer could receive approval to begin marketing the medicine known as varenicline by July. 

The FDA grants so-called priority review status to treatments with the potential to provide significant advances over similar treatments already on the market. The review process without fast-track status usually takes about 10 months. 
 

New York-based Pfizer, which plans to market the drug under the brand name Champix, said it helps smokers quit by reducing the severity of cravings and withdrawal symptoms. 

If approved, varenicline is expected to compete with Sanofi Aventis' Acomplia treatment, which was initially developed for obesity but has been found effective in helping to quit smoking and could also receive FDA approval in 2006.