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Human Trials Of Anti-Smoking Vaccine Begin
Makarand writes "A Nicotine
vaccine that may help smokers to quit
has made it to human trials.
The vaccine is administered as a series of eight shots --
patients receive two shots per visit during four different visits. The vaccine works by
stimulating the human immune system to produce antibodies that
bind with the nicotine molecules
to form a larger complex molecule which
cannot pass through the blood/brain barrier to get
into the brain. As a result smokers
will not feel the 'high' from the cigarettes they light up and lose interest in smoking.
Preliminary studies have shown that this vaccine is safe in humans." (Each link goes to a slightly different version of the same wire story.)
Maybe this could be used to treat physical addiction, but I don't see how it would help psychological addiction. You can become clinically addicted to something without your body being dependent on the substance; you just feel an uncontrolable urge to smoke, not for the high feeling, but just because you always smoke on the way to work, always smoke at parties, etc.
Seriously, people are going to get cold feet after a visit or two to the doctor when they're starting to really feel the pull of addiction, and realize that they are permanently destroying their ability to get a fix.
They need to get this vaccine down to something that can be administered in one visit, so people don't have a chance to get cold feet after the begining.
If they can make this something joe six-pack-a-day can just do one afternoon on an impulse, then I'll be really impressed.
Of course, then how long will it be until cigarette companies come out with anti-vacine cigs?
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
I can deal with the problem of smokers not being able to quit their filthy disgusting habit, but how about the more sociopathic problem that seems to plague the better part of them, therefore society as a whole?
Ever notice what happens when a smoker opens up a fresh pack? The plastic wrap goes onto the ground. Then, once the smoke is finished, it goes onto the ground too. When the pack is finished, it tends to end up on the ground too. In other words, smokers are some of the most sociopathic polluting assholes on the planet! Ever have a look around a typical smoking area around, say, a public building? Butts everywhere, despite the usual presence of buttcans and ashtrays. They don't use them or need them, because they consider the world as their ashtray!
Fucking assholes! These people don't need a vaccine to deal with their smoking problem. They need a simple boot in the ass, or several hundred as the case may be, to teach them a much needed lesson about simple politeness and courtesy! All before even getting into the usual controversies about polluting the air that I have to breathe without my consent.
I have to admit that I have been smoking for the past 9 years. Considering that I'm only 24 years old, that's a very long time. I've tried quitting cold turkey, I've tried the patch, the gum, and they all worked up to a point. Every time I tried quitting smoking, I stopped for a few days, but afterwards, I just had to start again. It wasn't the addiction that much, but simply the fact that I enjoy smoking too much.
Before I get all the replies describing all the side effects of smoking, you should know that I can do 150 push-ups every day, I can ride a bicycle for 30kms in about an hour through Toronto (which has its share of hills). So I'm still pretty healthy. When I'll get older this won't be the case anymore, but that's still a way off, so it doesn't feel like such a threat.
I guess this vaccine might work for me. If I can't derive pleasure from smoking, then I might have a chance of quitting. Because my willpower in this respect sure isn't helping.
From the Article
I guess another way to look at this upside-down, which a few people like me may visualize would be:
Nowadays whenever I think of smoking I think of how I felt like throwing up. Bingo, I have been cured of smoking. And Boy was it Cheaper than getting that vaccine! And less painful getting "shot" of it too !!
Thank you for all the research dollars ! They are paying for my new wheels.
If you loved my logic, here is another example for you about the Scientist and the Frog.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
If you WANT to quit, you will. You don't need any drugs, devices, or enemas.
Everyone I know who has tried (and failed) to quit, failed because they did not want to quit smoking. They tried to quit because they just felt they should.
You can quit when you actually WANT too.
Mind over matter, and shit like that....
...your kids will have to be vaccinated against drugs before entering public schools.
If you count air pollution, old tires, rusting steel, oil and gas, and amount of the world covered in interstate, the most sociopathic polluting assholes are the people who drive cars. You probably drive to work with real smug look, you puckered-rectum health nazi.
Ever notice what happens when a whiner opens their mouth? The first thing out of it is a bitch session about how someone else is screwing up their life. Once the stop frothing at the mouth about that, they have to start rebutting others. Then, they whine about getting modded down on Slashdot. In other words, whiners are some of the most sociopathic assholes on the planet! Ever have a look at the social habits of whiners? They empty a bar in no time. They don't need to go out because everyone hates them already, but they do anyway, just to make others unhappy.
Fucking assholes! These people don't need a vaccine to deal with their whining problem. They need a simple boot in the ass, or several hundred as the case may be, to teach them a much needed lesson about simple politeness and courtesy! All before getting into the usual controversies about what impact whining has on the economy, or how it kills kittens.
I forget what 8 was for.
Did you quit heroin today or something?
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
ban smoking and make sure people don't start. Surely that would be cheaper for the health service. Of course that doesn't take into account the amount of tax the goverment gets off the sales
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
A friend of mine was smoking American Spirit's. They advertise themselves as having no added chemicals and just being "pure" tobacco. It's well known that brands like Camel and Marlboro put added chemicals in their smokes, for whatever reason. Apparently a good amount of the addiction in these brands comes from some of the added chemicals, not just the nicotine.
Anyway, my friend said that as soon as she switched to American Spirit, she just didn't feel the need to smoke as much and the though of it kind of disgusted her. So I switched too.
After about a month, the very thought of smoking just disgusted me to the point where I stopped doing it. I started smoking their strongest ones, of which I could only finish about half a cigarette, then went to the medium, then their ultra-lights.
It's ironic using cigarettes to quit smoking, but it worked for me. The only side-effects I've had is that I feel much better. The smell of smoke in bars even disgusts me now.
Mockery serves a purpose, as does the lameness filter. Wait, at least one of those does, at least...
I forget what 8 was for.
Doesn't nicotine look like a neurotransmitter? (I forget which one, but your brain is chock full of nicotinate receptors). I'd be wary of a nicotine-binding antibody, it might well bind to a neurotransmitter... and that would not be good.
I'm glad it didn't have to come to that for me to quit smoking. :)
:).
Yeah, I used them patches but it was because I love my friends, anyone who knows someone who quit smoking cold turkey knows what I mean
Anyways, I'm glad because at least I can feel prouder about having quit with littler help than those future vaccinated guys.
Also, patches help you a lot psychologically because it's very very gradual. You have about four months to give up the patches and during that time you learn to kick off addiction, it's not just nicotine addiction, it's all the impulsions that make you an addicted person. In other words, I learned how to not substitude my nicotine addiction with alcohol/your favorite drug
But if the end result with the vaccine is less smokers in the world, I'm all for it.
People experience the effects of drugs differently because they differ genetically. That probably influences their susceptibility to addiction. It would make a lot of sense to try to even the playing field by vaccinating kids before they become addicted.
Of course, it shouldn't be mandatory. But it should be offered free to any parent who wants it for their child. And it should be carefully tested and monitored initially to make sure it doesn't have any unintended consequences.
I disagree. I smoked when i was 13/14 for about a year before I quit. I obviously don't think smoking/drugs is a good thing, but I think that (however ridiculous it may sound) the experience of feeling the effects of different drugs should not be robbed from people without their consent. And it isn't like you can undo the effects of a vaccine once you are (what society considers to be) old enough to responsibly make your own decisions. I think the decision to use drugs or to experiment with feeling high should be made by those that it truly concerns, the individual. Not the individual's parents. I can also tell you that for me, quitting smoking was a valuable experience. I didn't quit for my parents, I quit for me and for my friends and my life, and it really did help me grow up quite a bit.
eBayDig 1s a typo saerch engien
I smoked when i was 13/14 for about a year before I quit.
How lucky that you managed to quit. Most teenagers who start can't quit, and they lose decades of their lives.
the experience of feeling the effects of different drugs should not be robbed from people without their consent.
Parents have the right to have parts of their children's penises removed without their consent and with little demonstrable benefit. Talk about robbing people of experiences. I'd worry about that long before I'd worry robbing kids of the experience of becoming drug addicts.
I started smoking a few years ago with cigars. At first I would puff one once in a while because it was something to do with my friends. I would not inhale ( who the hell inhales cigars anyway? - Ouch! )
I did enjoy cigars. I did eventually form a habit for them. Basically any chemical you ingest that you enjoy is habit forming since once you learn that in certain situations a substance can make you feel better, it takes willpower to not ingest that substance when it is available in those situations.
Tobacco to smoke can make you less bored when 'hanging out' aka 'listening to boring people jabber'.
A Pepsi can make you cool and refreshed on a hot summer day, or cleanse your mouth with bubbles after some food. One could say I am addicted to Pepsi too. Water will meet my biological needs but soda is more refreshing.
I felt my addiction begin with cigars. I could feel the mild 'nic-fit' feelings I had at the time. I didn't know if this was as bad as a nic fit could get or not, but I didn't think it was *THAT* bad. I tested whether or notI could quit or not. After a day the 'nic-fit' feeling went away. Soon, nicotine's effect was gone without a trace. Downtime still exists. Not hungry but wanna take the eyes off the screen for a while at lunch anyway. I'll just go outside and smoke a cigar. It's winter? I'd sit in the car and listen to the radio smoking a cigar.
After the thrill of quitting successfully would wear off, I'd be bored and realize that there was no 'nic-fit' 'compelling' me to want to smoke. But I was bored, and could enjoy a cigar or a pipe and it wouldn't be that bad. I stayed away from cigarrettes at the time because I didn't want to inhale or mess up my lungs. A couple or three cigars a day or even a pack of 8 Backwoods Wild Rum Flavored if I happened to be bored and was 'hanging out' with a bunch other smokers wouldn't give me mouth cancer. Or it might, but I was willing to take that small chance for the added pleasure it gave my life.
Let me clarify: 'Hanging out' is boring - not constantly, but with many periods of boredom in there. Boredom and natural restlessness - not peer pressure is what makes the tobacco intake go up in a crowd. Smokers generally don't give a damn if you smoke ciggarettes or not.
'Ciggarettes' is the operative word. Smokers won't care if you smoke a cigarrette, but they often object to a stinky cigar or pipe. I was a cigar smoker 'hanging out' his friends who was not inconsiderate enough to light up a stogie. I was bored, restless and slightly nic-fitting, of course I would pick up a pack of camels on a beer run.
Wow! Ciggarettes sure are convienient! You can smoke em lots of places you can't light a cigar or pipe. Maybe they don't have the flavor of gourmet tobaccos but they are still something to do when there is nothing else to do. You have to smoke like a chimny though to have enough smoke coat your mouth to get a relaxing buzz and that's expensive! Have to start inhaling... Oh well there go my lungs... But I've been known to smoke a joint now and then. If I only use cigarettes at those social times when I might smoke a joint then that's once-in-a-while and isn't likely to cause the health problems associated with chronic smoking. I don't like pot that much though. Haven't smoked it in about 6 months and wouldn't miss it if I never smoked it again in my life.. I don't like being impared. Rather smoke a ciggarette.
Gee these cigarette things are potent. I smoke one and it gives quite a buzz.
Notice nic-fits in no-smoking zones are getting a bit worse. Better try quitting again. Can't concentrate for a day, but then all better. Yup still ca
Eat at Joe's.
Go to your doctor and ask him to prescribe Zyban/Wellbutrin. It works by mimicing the "high" you get from smoking (i.e. raising dopamine levels), and was pretty effective for me.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't really get "high" off cigarettes. I get a little woozy off the first one of the morning, but it's not a pleasant feeling. Subsequent cigarettes have no real effect (and I only smoke ten a day). They don't make me more alert, or keep me awake.
It might be that there is an effect, one so subtle as to escape my notice, but if it's that subtle I doubt it factors greatly in my addiction.
If they could invent a drug that would stop me from feeling like Spike Spiegel every time I lit up, maybe they'd have a chance...
"When you show the odd flash of contextual intelligence, I forget your generation can't read." -- Hannibal Lecter
Off-topic rant BEGINS
I'll be honest, I don't care how many people smoke, or how much death or suffering it causes (second-hand smoking deaths are grossly exaggerated if you read the current research about it). I've loved very few people who was actually stupid enough to start.
If you are such a fucking moron that you start smoking, then you will eventually reduce the surface population by one smoker, and my clothes won't stink as much when I go to the club. I just hope that it happens before they have children.
Think about it: a person adopts a habit that reduces his lifespan, makes his clothes stink, his breath bad, and his teeth yellow, just to be cool or tough? Are such shallow cretins really contributors to the gene pool, anyway? Youth isn't an excuse. If it was, we would all be smokers. But the non-cretinous teens never start smoking. "I like smoking" isn't an excuse either: if it were discovered tomorrow that 350,000 people a year died from eating bananas, bananas would rot on the shelves, and only the suicidal would start eating bananas.
My own children (both late teens) have never smoked, nor have any of their friends. When I expressed surprise at this recently, they both said to me, hurt: "You mean you think we would hang around with losers?"
Yielding to the temptation to smoke is a personality defect that usually means you have other, more striking defects which eliminate you from my list of potential friends, anyway. It shouts to me "I am weak" or "I am an unthinking moron" so loudly that you will never become more than a tolerated acquaintance.
Yes, this is a troll, except that I believe everything that I have typed.
For what it's worth, I don't think the law should ban smoking anywhere. It is the right of every smoker to be a stupid fuck. I just won't go to any restaurant that allows smoking, and let my dollars set their customer-smoking policy.
Off-topic rant FINISHES
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eBayDig 1s a typo saerch engien
That's a load if I ever saw one. Go have a look at the incidence of childhood asthma among children with parents who smoke versus those who don't. Come back and let us know what you find.
Consider that the University of Wisconsin medical school estimates annual health care costs of $4.6 billion for treating the asthma, ear, and respiratory infections of kids living in smoking households.
I watched my girlfriend suffer for years living with a smoking parent. When they finally quit, the immediate improvement in her health was remarkable. Smoking affects no one but the smoker? Give me a break.
I don't understand why the most lethal form of nicotine use (smoking) is unrestricted for any adult while less lethal forms (gum and patches) require medical prescriptions. Isn't this ass-backwards? That's like letting people use morphine unrestricted, but requiring a prescription to use aspirin. If we're going to let people use nicotine, why not let them use it without killing themselves and those around them?
Wonderful post... very good description and I totally agree with the conclusion. It sucks being addicted to something you'll have to avoid permanently (especially when everyone around you is smoking the damn things). BTW, tho only time I managed to quit for a decent amount of time (8 months) was a cold turkey and every time I was bored and thought "... hell, one won't do me bad..." I used the AA strategy "... but then you'll have to reset the day-count, that would be a shame..." It did work pretty well...
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Erm... now, I'd be against the government or any other entrenched institution making it mandatory (nothing quite like mandatory vaccinations against "illegal" or "immoral" behavior, is there?) but give me a break! That's like saying that people should not be robbed of feeling the effects of different diseases without their consent. It could be argued that there's the difference in being infected and choosing to shoot up, but given that we don't consider children under 16 capable of making pretty much any decisions for themselves, that's not really an issue. Hell, we don't consider people intelligent and mature enough to make decisions on chemical ingestion until the ripe old totally arbitrary age of 21 here in the U.S.
If parents want to decide beforehand that their children will be immune to the addictive properties of harmful drugs like cocaine and nicotine, so be it. Parents have every right to guide their child's development in a responsible manner, so until an individual is X years old, it's not up to them.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I can deal with the problem of smokers not being able to quit their filthy disgusting habit,
I think you fail to understand the nature of addiction. It must be a nice perspective that you have.
The craving for a cigarette feels every bit as instinctive, internal and hard-wired as the cravings for food, sex, and a trip to the bathroom when the bladder is full.
If you, presumably as someone who has never smoked, wishes to understand the agony of quitting smoking, I suggest that you simply deny yourself peeing for a week. Tell me how it feels. That's exactly what quitting smoking is like.
Most attempts to quit smoking never make it past the first day. The worst for me was always day three.
After a week or so, the brain starts to get over the cravings, but they never really completely go away.
Ever notice what happens when a smoker opens up a fresh pack? The plastic wrap goes onto the ground.
Not mine; even when I accidentally drop it, I pick it up and take it to the trash.
Then, once the smoke is finished, it goes onto the ground too.
That happens because all the anti-smokers ran around, from the depths of their ignorance about the nature of the nicotine addiction, screaming that "If we take the ashtrays out of public places people won't smoke!".
Bullshit. I have been in a situation where I could have sex or I could smoke - this was an ex who told me that we'd have sex if I didn't smoke that evening. Guess which one won out?
So, if flicking a butt on the ground - which is abhorrent to me - is the cost of having a cigarette, then it's a cost I will bear. Again, I've foregone sex for it.
I would use ashtrays if they were around. I'm not putting the butts in the garbage can; I'm sure you can appreciate the risk of fire.
When the pack is finished, it tends to end up on the ground too. In other words, smokers are some of the most sociopathic polluting assholes on the planet! Ever have a look around a typical smoking area around, say, a public building? Butts everywhere, despite the usual presence of buttcans and ashtrays. They don't use them or need them, because they consider the world as their ashtray!
When you smoke outside, you're so accustomed to the lack of an outdoor ashtray that you reflexively toss the butt on the ground. It's unfortunate.
Fucking assholes! These people don't need a vaccine to deal with their smoking problem. They need a simple boot in the ass, or several hundred as the case may be, to teach them a much needed lesson about simple politeness and courtesy!
I agree with the littering, but I wouldn't agree that smokers throw their empty packs or wrappers on the ground any more than the various sasquatches who throw gum wrappers and losing lottery tickets on the ground.
The only way to address the butt litter will be to have more ashtrays in more public places, but that's not going to happen because of all the idiots who will say it encourages smoking. (Heh... looking at an ashtray always grosses me out; if anything, it's a deterrent.)
All before even getting into the usual controversies about polluting the air that I have to breathe without my consent.
Well, for the most part, it will only affect you in a bar or restaurant. Smoking in the workplace is essentially verboten now.
Coping with it is very simple. If you don't like smoke, sit in the non-smoking section of that bar or restaurant. If they don't have a non-smoking section, go to a bar or restaurant which does.
"Quitting smoking is easy; I have done it a thousand times." - Mark Twain.
Smoking is:
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
For those of you who don't smoke, addiction is like this: I smoked because I had to. I didn't enjoy it, I smoked because if I didn't I felt sick. Imagine the worst flu you can have and one cigarette will cure it instantly. I told myself that I enjoyed it, that there was no reason to stop, only 20% of the people who smoke get sick, it wouldn't be me, and as many other lies to support my addiction as you can imagine. Smokers are accomplished liars, I know, I was one.
Now, let's talk about quitting:
1: Any help is good help.
- "The Patch," Gum, Inhalers, or any other form of NRT (Nicotine Replacement Therapy) do help but will have no effect at all without other forms of therapy.
- MAOI's and other drugs can also help a smoker quit, but again, they are pointless and worthless if used by themselves.
2: Virtually All smokers are at least thinking about quitting.
3: Smokers have no idea what the costs to others are of their smoking ...not to mention the well-documented dangers of second-hand smoke.
- They have no idea that you can smell a cigarette from across the block.
- They can't fathom the fact that they stink and you can smell it hours after they are finished with their cigarette. To them, they smell fine.
-
4: Smokers have no idea what the costs to themselves are:
- Smokers miss work -- even while they are at work. The addiction is so bad that when it comes time to have a cigarette, it's all a smoker can think about. There is no room to think about work.
- Smokers have a greatly diminished ability to do physical work, to breathe, to smell, and to taste. As a smoker, I had no idea about what I was missing, but when I quit, the difference I felt was amazing.
In short, It's nice that there might be a new product to help people quit. I used the patch, and it took the edge off, but it didn't quit for me. The program I used was at stopsmokingcenter.net, and I would not have been able to quit without it. There is no easy route for a smoker to take. Smoking's a powerful addiction and smokers need all the help they can get.
I've tried the patch, the gums, even managed to quit without any nicotinic surrogate (which being the only period totally off nicotine I consider my only true success) for as much as 8 months but I've always relapsed.
Ask your doctor for some Wellbutrin. (sorry...tried to look up a link for you but all I get from Google is online pharmacy ads) It's a mood elevator but it appears to be very good at relieving nicotine cravings. I know people who have used it to quit smoking and said that it was totally effective.
...and no, I'm not shilling for a pharmaceutical company. I think they're evil, democracy-destroying bastards, actually. Not as evil as tobacco corporations, though. The 9/11 hijackers killed about 3000 people a couple of years ago. Tobacco corporations kill that many people every two-and-a-half days . Who are the real terrorists?
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
neuroscience has demonstrated that smoking causes the brain to release antidepressants; these are chemically identical to (but far more pure than) some prescription medication. many people who smoke are simply mildly depressed individuals who have discovered that they can self-medicate with something legal and effective -- these people don't need to "quit smoking", they just need "a better/more-socially-acceptable prescription".
yes, i think smoking is disgusting. yes, i think california's "no smoking in bars/restaurants" law is stupid (it should really have been handled as an air quality standards issue, with free market economics doing the rest). but i can't demonize anyone's personal choice of medication -- as long as people are polite and clean up after themselves, i don't care what drugs they like.
(1) A nicotine vaccine does NOT solve the chemical addiction at all. Your body would still have the cravings for the a cigarette, because when you smoke it...the nicotine doesn't make it to the brain. Your brain still yells out: "give me something to stop this withdrawal"
(2) A nicotine vaccine actually would help the emotional side of the addiction. The emotional addictions follows thus: your body needs a chemical, you associate that chemical with a cigarette, and therefore you smoke a cigarette to meet your body's need. If you stop associating the cigarette with meeting the body's need, then you stop having a desire for a cigarette. Now you just want some nicotine (e.g., patch, gum, etc.). Else, you can feel free to smoke that cigarette for the other purposes (social, comfort, etc.).
It's like decaf coffee. Doesn't fix your chemical craving for caffeine, but it's sure as hell nice to drink when you want to warm up.
(3) Notice too that they call this a "vaccine". Is the point of a vaccine to cure something after you've got it? Not really. It's a preventative measure. So while you can argue the merits of trying to "prevent" nicotine addiction (and also, who on earth would pick up the habit if they already know they don't want the nicotine from it)... this is not a therapy aimed as a one day fix.
It's not a nicotine de-addiction treatment: it's a nicotine vaccine
If this vaccine and others are at all viable, possible, and not merely expensive 'tonic cure-all' solutions to what are basic social behavioral issues rather than 'health' issues. . . how far off could it be to bio-engineer 'safe' products to smoke rather than try and curb centuries old habits and customs?
Whatever happened to freedom?
I'm all for your freedom to smoke whatever you want. I'm all against the tobacco corporations' freedom to sell a product that addicts people and kills 1200 of them each and every day. What kind of civilized society allows corporations to kill 1200 people a day? Even the 9/11 hijackers weren't that bloodthirsty.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Exactly. Like smoking.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Exactly. Even if you manage to chemically disable all of the major drugs during childhood, people who really want to get high will find a way. There's always whipped cream, spray paint, plastic bags, etc.
Solution: Every year, raise the minimum smoking age by 6 months. No one on the verge of legal age will be seriously inconvenienced, and even now-newborns will be able to smoke when they reach the age of 32.
Actually, go ahead and stop when the minimum age becomes 45, and the "for grown-ups-only" aspect that wanting-to-define-themselves teenagers are looking for will be seriously diminished.
Seriously, the RJR-Nabisco anti-smoking ads are the worst thing public policy could allow... they say "little baby kids shouldn't smoke", with the subtext "if you don't want to be treated like a baby, then you should smoke" (or, if you disagree with my statement there, consider the "nonsmoking is immature" alternative). They usually show 9-to-12 year olds when they should be showing teenagers instead.
disclaimer: my mom had 1/5th of her lung removed and still smokes. She'll probably still smoke when she has emphysema... (p.s. those warnings on cigarettes say you can get emphysema, but I would say most people who start smoking don't have any idea what that is, much less met someone with it)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
No, it's exactly the kind of unthinking lameness the original poster was complaining about.
During the 20 years I smoked I never threw a butt on the ground. My friends that still smoke don't do it now. Just strip the biodegradable bits off and put the filter in your pocket until you find an appropriate receptacle.
And yes, I occasionally forgot and ran one through the laundry, at which point all my clothes smelled vaguely like an ashtray - but face it, if you smoke you smell like an ashtray to other people regardless. If it really bothers you, carry one of those small round sweet tins in your pants pocket and use it for a filter bin, I've seen people do that too and they easily hold a pack or three's worth of stripped filters.
I'll chime in here with my own point of view:
I'm all for your freedom to smoke whatever you want. I'm all for the tobacco corporations' freedom to sell a product that addicts people and kills 1200 of them each and every day. I'm all against me having to pay for it in the form of medical expenses for cancer patients who have been life-long smokers, even though they KNEW it would cause cancer. What kind of civilized society makes me pay for someone else being a moron?
--rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
living in a house full of smoke is vastly different than claiming the guy puffing on a cigarette in the park is going to give you cancer.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
I'm all for the tobacco corporations' freedom to sell a product that addicts people and kills 1200 of them each and every day.
I'm all against me having to pay for it in the form of medical expenses for cancer patients who have been life-long smokers, even though they KNEW it would cause cancer.
Thanks for demonstrating the cold, hard, calloused heart of the modern laissez-faire capitalist.
It's fine for a corporation to murderously addict an ignorant segment of the population to their product as long as they're making a profit on human suffering. But screw the victim of their criminal behavior who's only transgression against society was ignorance. Nice philosophy you got there.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
A note on stop smoking aids containing nicotine: Maybe some people find them helpful, but there is one thing wrong with them - they contain nicotine! They're frikken nic-teasers! They delay the time ( 4th day cold turkey ) when physical urges cease! I can't imagine putting up with that for months.... Maybe ONE patch to bring you down, but then you'll have 3 days of physical urges after that, and that first day you will still be bored and want a ciggarrette. Maybe substuting ONE DAYS WORTH OF cigars ( throwing any extras in the toilet ) for the one patch would help ameliorate the I smoked a cigarrette - I got a buzz association but that fourth day completely nic-free is golden.
:)
The trick with nicotine patches is that they don't get rid of the nicotine cravings - they help you break the physical addiction.
I've had success with them so far... (Not over and done with yet, but getting there).
The trick is, you have to remember to put it on every morning (I tried putting it on the night before when I started quitting... I had exceptionally vivid dreams... very freaky). If you don't put it on first thing, you'll start feeling withdrawal after a couple of hours which will drive you completely nuts. The first thing you must do every day is put it on.
In other words... don't punish yourself or test yourself and see how long you can go without. It doesn't work that way.
Right now, I'm doing great. Stepped down to 14mg, and about to step down to 7mg. I don't get the urge to smoke any more, and weaning myself off this way takes the edge off the physical cravings nearly completely - and the stepping down is relatively painless.
There's a knack to it
Coming soon - pyrogyra
If parents want to decide beforehand that their children will be immune to the addictive properties of harmful drugs like cocaine and nicotine, so be it.
While I agree in principle with your idea, it would never work. The reason those compounds get people "high" is because they are very similar to substances that occur naturally in the body. Good idea, make kids immune to their own brain chemicals.
Even if that problem could be solved, which I doubt, those compounds have therapeutic uses. Cocaine is a phenomenally good local anesthetic. The opiates are excellent painkillers. If your kid has surgery, would you want it so they could get no benefit from good ol' Tylenol 3? Or if things were bad enough that your kid ever needed a morphine drip, would you want it so that it couldn't do anything for him or her? Would anyone? I doubt it.