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Nicotine-Free Cigs, Genetically Engineered
jim.b0b writes "Wired has an interesting article about nicotine-free cigarettes, made from genetically engineered tobacco grown by Amish farmers. Vector Tobacco is hoping that their Quest cigarettes will make them a viable competitor to RJR and Phillip Morris. Don't worry, they are nicotine-free, not carcinogen-free."
IANAS (I am not a smoker) but isn't the reason most people smoke for the nicotine?
That's like alcohol-free beer. What's the point?
When I used to smoke, I smoked for the nicotine...What good are these things.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
I don't understand. What is so bad about nicotine? The nicotine just keeps you addicted. It's the thousands of chemicals like TAR and like CHLORINE that will kill you.
I'm still not sure I undrestand why cigerettes even have those other things in them. WOuldn't they be just as good without them?
One main reason smokers smoke one or two or more packs a day is that is the level of nicotine they are addicted to. Take away the nicotine and they'll be puffing away on 4-6 packs a day...
You know my biggest problem with quitting smoking isn't so much the nicotine withdrawals as it is the habit. I smoke all the time in everything I do. For me it's breaking the habit of lighting up after taking a shower, waking up, eating something, etc.. With the stress of ditching the nicotine compounded with not being able to smoke after dinner, it makes it quite difficult. With nicotine free cigs, I might be able to breeze through the initial withdrawals long enuff that later on, the trauma of quitting a constant, daily routine won't be as stressful and perhaps a little bit more manageable.
And in the event that I wanted to light up the "occasional" cig to have with a cup of java, it wouldn't start the nicotine withdrawal process all over.
Perhaps this could be the tool to my salvation? The way things are goinig, cigarettes will be illegal soon enough anyway.
Wait until they find out that without nicotine there is absolutely no reason for someone to use their product. I mean look at the stunning sales of alcohol free beer.
Chris
Lets just face it. You stink. Your car stinks, your house stinks, your breath stinks. You just stink.
The added expense of paying $5 per pack to smoke
You get to outside in the cold rain or snow, or summer heat, and huddle around acting "cool"
Oh yeah, and then there is the small detail that it kills you.
Um. Yeah, sign me up.
Well, 1/5 isn't so bad. From page 3 of the article:
In 1998, a Vector scientist stumbled upon a sealed canister in the basement of the old Liggett research lab in Durham, North Carolina. The canister contained cigarettes from a secret research initiative known as Project XA, an attempt to produce cigarettes with reduced toxins - a safer smoke. Liggett canceled the program in the '70s, reportedly after being pressured by other companies. The industry feared that the introduction of a reduced-toxin cigarette would be a tacit acknowledgment that cigarettes were harmful, an unthinkable admission two decades ago.
But times had changed, and LeBow dived in. By 2000, a research team completed what its predecessors couldn't. Using palladium to treat tobacco, they produced a cigarette that caused 70 percent fewer tumors in mice. Trumpeting the research, LeBow launched a $25 million advertising campaign in 2001 and released what was dubbed the Omni.
It was a huge failure.
As someone who smokes and wants to quit, these might be better then gum, etc.
It would be cheaper as well. It would be interesting to see if it could be used to calm the cravings slightly. Fooling you into think you are getting the nicotine witout really getting it.
As a smoker I'm not sure if I smoke for the nicotine, or if I just smoke to smoke. It would be interesting to see. When I drink I usually smoke a ton more then usuall, once drunk I don't know if I'd recognize the difference.
Although this is probably a good thing (even though you're killing yourself, you're doing it without addiction), I think there may be an overlooked aspect here.
Considering how uninformed the typical consumer is, I fear this could result in a rise in the number of smokers. When Joe Sixpack is browsing through his local 7 Eleven and sees a pack of cigs with "Nicotine Free" on the box, what if he thinks "Hey, I can smoke without harming myself" and takes up smoking. I think this is not an inconceivable situation. I would hope that these things come with additional warnings stating that while they do not contain addictive nicotine, they are still cancer causing.
My other sig is funny!
This is nothing new really. For decades you have been able to get "herbal tobacco" which contains no nicotine. Some dope smokers roll joints with it to avoid getting hooked on nicotine. The actual point of it is the same as the point of these "nicotine free" cigs- to get you unhooked.
I personally prefer using nicotine patches- so it's the other way around- nicotine and no smoking habit.
The reason it's better is that you get rid of the withdrawel symptoms because you are getting nicotine, you aren't breathing smoke so it's better for your lungs- and you can use public transport and walk into shops without having to have a quick cig first- which is an actual bonus to giving up.
I find people who give up by using, say, nicotine gum or lonzenges have an easier time to start with because they get a nicotine buzz, and there's a new ritual to replace the old one, but then a harder time getting from the replacement to nothing at all, as they haven't kicked the "ritual" part of smoking, or the nicotine delivered once per hour (or whatever).
The only benefit of nicotine free cigs compared to the existing "herbal tobacco" if that's the way you want to go, is that the herbal tobacco cigarettes normally smell so bad that they clear out rooms- even of people who quite happily tolerate ordinary cigarette smoke.
graspee
You're making a big assumption that most people only drink beer because it has alcohol.
;-)
For me, I'd be delighted to find a good-tasting alcohol-free beer. Or even a very low-alcohol beer. To me, it's the taste of having a good beer that is most important, although I admit that the alcohol is a nice bonus most of the time.
But imagine being able to have a couple of stouts at lunch time, and then still being able to operate heavy machinery without killing someone (or running servers without bringing your corporate web server to its knees)? That would kick ass. Beer tastes so good.
The non-alcohol beers, unfortunately, are not worth getting....
Cheers,
Vic
I'm not at the forefront of the changes in the Amish community or anything, but doesn't the phrase "genetically engineered tobacco grown by Amish farmers" seem a bit odd?
I've been a smoke for many years, I remember my nicotine addiction starting at 8 when my old man use to let me grab a pinch of beechnut. I remember feeling like crap and being addicted to it for a while, then later on quitting, then becoming addicted to cigerettes at 10 when I went to live with my mom.
So here I am, over 20 years of putting this crap in my body.. The sad thing is when I don't have it.
First sign is nervousness, agitation. Then I go into cold sweats as my body excretes tar and nicotine out from my pours. Third stage i'm rollin up butts from the ashtray.
For those of you that don't understand the nature of addiction, let me tell you, I go through it every night. At least when I sleep, I have nothing to agitate me, but I still go through the physical withdrawel symptoms every night, proof of which is washing the sheets every 3 to 4 days to take out the yellow stain from my tar infused sweat.
I hate cigs, they are a tax on my life and my health, and I feel that the addictive traits of nicotine has been played down to avoid lawsuits. I've even developed shakes at times, no different than any heroin junkie.
I tried quittin new years cold turkey. I just bought a carton of marlboro reds today for 30 bucks. Previously I tried patches, gum, and hypnosis.
I have heard of anesthetic therapy for herion users. Sorry for no link but I remember seeing it on dateline NBC, search there produced too many results. The premise is simple, hook a needle up to the patients arm with a drip bag of sodium penathol and let them sleep through their withdrawels.
As neat as this genetic amish tobacco sounds, it just won't cut it for people who have been smoking as long as I have. Over 2/3's of my life I've had this shit running through my brain. I need rest.
Hypothetically speaking, what would happen if this strand got into the wild?
Not being a smoker, I'd think it hilarious if a large portion of the tobacco crop ended up tainted with the "phony" tobacco. Just on the principle of the matter.
Phillip Morris would have a collective heart attack if their biggest profit maker became non-additive!
=Smidge=
Nicotine free cigarretes have been tried before... and it went really bad. The book BARBARIANS AT THE GATE mentions how RJR Nabisco once tried it an have a marketing test which got a 95% percent response: "IT TAKES LIKE SHIT".
People are not cigarrete addicted. People are nicotine adicted. With no nicotine, every smoker will just about give the same response.
They have engineered the reverse, in a sense. Nicotine patches, gum, and so forth. Unfortunately, these are all priced far above the cost of nicotine delivered in a cigarette, so only those who can justify the cost as an aid to quitting will use these products.
I see this as a perfect example of our screwy, chaotic, and counterproductive attitude toward drugs. Cigarettes give you cancer and heart disease, so instead of finding a healthier delivery system for addicts, we tell them they either have to smoke cigarettes or go without their drug. Or use oral tobacco with none of the carcinogens taken out, so addicts can enjoy a new set of cancers.
This doesn't make any sense. Why not grasp the reality that some people are addicted to nicotine and like the effects? Why not provide them with a less-dangerous alternative? Surely a nicotine pill or drink could be made at a competitive price-per-dose. Lives would be saved.
By the way, this isn't entirely a theoretical viewpoint. In Sweden an oral preparation called snus, is used by many Swedish nicotine addicts and Sweden has the lowest rate of male lung cancer in Europe. It does increase oral cancer rates somewhat, but that's a bug, not a feature. With our present pharmaceutical abilities, we ought to be able to come up with a delivery system that has harmful effects no worse than the drug itself. Nicotine, while not harmless, is less harmful than smoking cigarettes or dipping snuff.
Maybe one of these days we'll start treating drug use and abuse realistically, but not yet.
The reason this is interesting is because now the chemical and the habit can be seperated into two problems each easier to deal with on its own than in conjunction with the other. Nicotine patches and gum have helped a large number of people give up smoking because they allow a smoker to wean themselves off of the physical habit without having to deal with withdrawal from the chemical. If they are successful at this step, they have come half way and have only to wean themselves off of the patch.
This engineered tobacco allows the same process to work the other way. In fact the two could probably be combined for a very gentle weaning process consisting of first switching smokers to nicotine-free cigarettes and nicotine patches and then slowly lowering the use of one while keeping the other constant and then lowering the second to match.
Also, to all the people saying this is a dumb idea and using comparisons with alcohol-free beer(which they claim is also a dumb idea). Regardless of whether you think it will help people quit smoking or not, I guarantee that enough people will be willing to try to pull in a healthy profit for the company. All those companies aren't making alcohol-free beer because it doesn't sell. So in that sense its definitely not a dumb idea.
lysergically yours
most smokers who try to quit end up starting to smoke again days, weeks, or even months later- long after the nicotine addiction has passed. this is due to a psychological addiction which is usually much stronger than the physical addiction to nicotine. this product does not really address this issue, and IMHO, might cause people to smoke more, since they won't be experiencing the nicotine which they need to "take the edge off" of a stressful situation.
The stuff grows naturally, has like, zero nicotine, tastes better than regular cigarettes, and it even makes you feel good. Support your local amish hydroponic operation today...buy pot!
Actually no - if it were a drug delivery system then it would fall within the scope of the FDA's power to regulate. So far the Tobacco companies have escaped that horror or horrors.
Smokeless cigarettes on the other hand (i.e. cigarettes that are considerably better for the smoker and entirely safe for those around him) were ruled to be drug delivery systems, and were kept out of the market. Life is strange sometimes.
What's the point of leaving out the drug?
I wondered about this myself - this stuff will ruin your health without making you feel good. Kind of like taking a burger and removing the flavor, but leaving the fat. Hmmm...
Yet another example of our inability to distinguish technological progress from social progress in general. It's, uh, new, and uh, technological, it MUST be better!!
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
What's a hit to their bottom line is being forced to air advertisements discouraging use of their own product! You don't see that every day :) I've always found this very amusing.
On topic, I use to smoke a lot, for maybe 5 years. I still smoke occasionaly when I go out to bars or whatever but am fine not smoking for long periods of time. Nicotine is only a small part of the addiction, for me anyways. As a parent post pointed out (I think), the addiction is just as much about the act of smoking. That's why things like gum and patches, while certainly helpful, don't have the success rate for quiting that one might expect. Cigarettes become such a part of your life after a while, after a big meal, while drinking, first thing in the morning, after sex, driving in the car, talking on the phone, using your computer, blah blah blah... They become associated with everything that you do and when you take that all away... it's very hard to deal with.
One other thing that makes it very hard is by smoking, you meet other smokers. Said smokers become your friends. When you try to quit, all your friends all around you are still smoking. IF you dont have to see it, its not too bad, but being around chain smokers while trying not to smoke really sucks ass. I wasnt able to quit until I graduated college and moved away from most of my friends. Finally I was free of being around cigaretes all the time, and that's what made the biggest difference for me.
Joseph?
I quit smoking, so can anybody. From a pack a day to zero. No big deal, you just stay away for smokes.
What bothers me is the whole set up. If the federal government really wanted to kill tobaco, they could just STOP PAYING PEOPLE TO GROW IT. Of course, the states would lose their lucrative tax base and the economy would lose the export money. Does it bother anyone else that the federal government tells you tobaco will kill you, that you should not use it, but then encourages it's production?
You have to wonder if this will get the same kind of subsidies. If not, we will know that the federal government considers tobaco a nicotine delivery system and encourges it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.