Nicotine is highly addictive. It is also the main reasonquitting smoking is so difficult. Now, a new studysuggests that selling only cigarettes with very lownicotine levels may actually help people stop smoking.
In some countries, more than 50 percent of all mensmoke cigarettes or use another tobacco product.Experts say nearly half of them will die of cancer. That adds up to about 20billion deaths worldwide so far this century.
A national study shows that if the amount of nicotine in cigarettes is reduced, it might help smokers quit.
For the study, U.S. researchers gathered more than 800 smokers across thecountry.
Some of the participants were given very low-nicotine cigarettes. They did notknow it at the time. The other participants smoked their usual brand ofcigarettes. The study took six weeks.
The participants who used their usual cigarettes smoked between 22 and 21cigarettes per day. Participants who smoked cigarettes containing much lessnicotine smoked just 14 to 16 cigarettes a day.
Smokers who got the lower nicotine cigarettes did not feel the usualwithdrawal symptoms. Some of them even went on to quit smoking entirely.
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine makes the case forregulating nicotine as a way to help people quit smoking. Tobaccoresearcher Michael Fiore was not involved in the study, but he wrote anarticle in the journal.
"Way back in 1976, an early and famous tobacco researcher said thefollowing: People smoke for the nicotine but they die from the tar.' And that tarresults from burning tobacco. Thus if we could somehow disassociate thesetwo, and wean people off deadly tar, then we could prevent tens of millions ofdeaths over time."
David Tinkelman is Medical Director of Health Initiatives at National JewishHealth in Denver, Colorado. He finds it interesting-- the idea of marketingcigarettes with very low nicotine.
But he notes that cigarette replacements have not reduced nicotine addictionor tobacco use. Cigarette replacements include electronic or e-cigarettes, inwhich smokers inhale water vapor containing nicotine.
"There are many studies which show that e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine,don't actually help a lot of people break their addiction to tobacco or helppeople get off of cigarettes. What happens is they switch addictions. Theyare just taking it a different way."
Both Mr. Tinkelman and Mr. Fiore agree. They say more studies are neededto show whether low nicotine cigarettes help smokers kick the habit.
In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a law regulating nicotine. Itpermitted regulators to require that only cigarettes with very low nicotinelevels can be sold in the United States.
However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to act on that law.
I’m Anne Ball.
Jessica Berman reported this story. Marsha James adapted it into LearningEnglish. Ashley Thompson was the editor.
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