A waste of money or good use of tax $?

Yesterday I came across the Lung cancer Alliance's new PSA for lung screening - www.DrLunglove.com. It uses a hip-hop music video called "Waitin' Room Service" to promote the idea that screening for at-risk populations is a good idea.

I am not opposed to promoting awareness of screening for lung problems, the issue is that at-risk groups - the over 65s mainly - rarely watch hip-hop music videos. So it seems to me that this activity targets the right people, but in totally the wrong way.
Another case of having the heart in the right place, but failing to understand human behviour and psychology.

Grow up!

Some deep thinker has started a website called RepealSmokingBans.com

My favourite section is the Hall of Shame where senators, public health professionals, Cancer Society volunteers, nurses, professors of radiology are roundly denounced as fascists. Here are some of my favourite quotes:

Commenting on South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds' statement "We all recognize the health hazards of smoke and secondhand smoke. After serious deliberation, the Legislature decided to create a smoke-free environment in restaurants and lounges." the website says: "Wrong, nazi-breath. We do not acknowledge your lies and propaganda. There was no 'serious deliberation'....You're un-American. You're a coward. We know it, and now the whole world knows it. South Dakota. The home of Mount Rushmore. Absolutely disgusting."

Or this beauty: Gay Cornell is an American Cancer Society volunteer from Kansas who lost close relatives, including a parent, to smoking related cancer in their thirties. For her work in advocating for a smoking ban in Kansas she is described as a 'slob', 'lunatic', 'fascist', 'zealot', 'thug', 'arrogant', 'tyrannical', 'Nazi', 'out of control' and, my personal favourite, as 'spitting on the grave of every soul that gave all'. When soldiers are fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, I'm pretty sure they aren't fighting against smoking bans.

I once made the observation that sometimes you know which side of an argument is right just by seeing who's on the other side of it. Surely this is such a case. If I was still a smoker, I would be embarrassed and ashamed of these morons.

It's getting cold...

Well, it had to come sooner or later: we woke up to our first frost of the season today. Oh Joy! Another six months of winter!

When I was a smoker, this was the most depressing time of the year. Realizing that ahead of you is six months of going "to get some fresh air" outside in sub-Arctic conditions, pretending that it's all a bit of fun all the while asking yourself what on earth you're doing...

Not fun.

Stay as warm as toast this winter by quitting smoking with Allen Carr's Easyway. For more information visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Great smoking quotes

"Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics" Fletcher Knebel

"Sooner or later, everyone stops smoking" Anon

"I'll never feel comfortable taking a strong drink, and I'll never feel easy smoking a cigarette. I just don't think those things are right for me." Elvis Presley

"I'm more proud of quitting smoking than of anything else I've done in my life, including winning an Oscar." Christine Lahti

"In Hollywood you can't even smoke in a bar anymore and yet in the movies they're always showing people smoking. I don't get it." Gerald McRaney

"Tobacco exports should be expanded aggressively because Americans are smoking less." Dan Quayle

A request for honesty from researchers...

Today a number of news outlets report on a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin which concludes that the most effective way to quit smoking is a combination of the nicotine patch and the nicotine lozenge, but there are many questions raised by the research.

Firstly, the research only covered methods involving drugs (most of them including the drug smokers are actually trying to stop). So methods like Allen Carr's Easyway - which has a success rate 8-10 times higher than NRT - were not included.

Secondly, the study does not provide smokers with the actual success rates for the products tested, instead they compare them in relation to each other. So, for example, we know that using a combination of the nicotine patch and lozenge increases a smoker's chance of being smoke-free after six months by over 200% over placebo.

Sounds impressive, right? But is it really?

The first question is a simple one: a 200% increase from what to what? From 1% to 3%? From 10% to 30%? This is what smokers really want to know, but this information is nowhere to be found.

According to Clive Bates, Director of ASH the UK's leading tobacco control charity and an enthusiastic supporter of NRT the six month success rates are "3-6%". Hardly success to shout from the rooftops is it?

And how many of those who are smoke-free at six months end up addicted to the patch or the lozenge, and how many of these nicotine addicts ultimately go back to smoking?

For simple, clear success rate data for Allen Carr's Easyway and just about every other method out there, please visit us at http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/AboutUs/Success/tabid/68/Default.aspx

A simple question...

If e-cigarettes are as safe as their makers claim, why are they resisting FDA oversight? If they have nothing to hide then the FDA will declare them safe and allow them to be sold.

I would have thought they would welcome the FDA's interest and co-operate in every way with them, not sue to challenge their authority.

Personally, I remain deeply suspicious of anyone selling a product containing an addictive drug while claiming it doesn't warrant federal oversight. It seems to me that e-cigarette companies are guilty of behaving like the tobacco companies they are so clearly trying to replace.

To get nicotine - in all its forms - out of your life, learn more about Allen Carr's easyway by visiting us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

More light relief...

This video is called Smoking Kills...it's funny though.

No hamsters were harmed in this production.

My first cigarette...

I remember it so clearly. I was nine. I had just finished my soccer practice and was hanging around the deserted school waiting for my older brother to finish his.

An older, cooler boy, Michael Weeks, was waiting for his brother too. He saw me kicking a ball against the wall and called me over to him. As we sat and chatted, he offered me a cigarette and I took it. It was the worst mistake I ever made and one that would largely define the next 25 years of my life.

I wish, at that moment, I could have stopped the tape and seen into the future: the pain, suffering and despair this drug would cause; the wasted time and money; the damage to the relationships with my family and the years of mental and physical slavery. I would have said NO and kicked Mike in the teeth.

But I didn't. I took that first cigarette. Before long, I was smoking every day and by the time I left High School I was smoking nearly a pack-a-day, despite never genuinely 'enjoying' it.

In all, I smoked for just over 25 years. I was a good sportsman at school, but I quit playing the sports I loved because as a smoker I couldn't handle the physical demands of training. It's one of my biggest regrets. I know I can never get those years back, but what I can do is to try to ensure that other young kids don't make the same mistake I did, which is why I share Allen's passion for prevention.

If you want to help your children to avoid the smoking trap, then read Allen's book "Smoking Sucks!"

Dave Allen talks about smoking and quitting

The late, great Irish comedian Dave Allen did this terrific routine about smoking and quitting back in 1984 - the year after Allen Carr founded the Easyway organisation. If you have a few minutes, enjoy one of the all-time greats...

An interesting thought...

Yesterday when I was running a quit smoking seminar, one of the attendees - a rather elderly Greek gentleman - made what I thought was a very interesting point. He said: "If we had to pay for our bodies, in the same way that we have to pay for a car or a house, would we never even think about ruining it by smoking."

He's right: we take so much - including our body and our health - for granted.

Allen Carr once said: "Your body is the vehicle that carries you through life. You only get one, and you've been lucky to have a strong, healthy body. It is a thousand times over your most precious possession. Who could conceive of a more ridiculous behaviour than to spend a fortune for the privilege of administering hourly doses of poison to the vehicle upon which the length, quality and enjoyment of your whole life depends?"

Take control of your life back. Quit smoking today using our online web seminar. To find our more visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Quit smoking before Thanksgiving weekend

Every year we see a big spike in our seminar bookings immediately before Thanksgiving. I guess people want to go back to their families as happy non-smokers, rather than having to suffer through Thanksgiving weekend as a smoker, constantly on the look-out for any excuse to be away from their family so they can sneak out for a quick cigarette.

We are running two seminars in the US before Thanksgiving: one in NYC on November 15th (more information here) and one in LA on November 21st (information here).

If either of these dates or locations is not convenient, then you could think about quitting online with our webcast seminar. The online seminar is available 24/7/365 and you can watch it whenever you want, wherever you want. For more information click here.

More light relief...

This won't help you quit, but it is pretty funny...

A bit of light relief...

Most quit smoking commercials are ineffective because they talk about the health risks of smoking and smokers immediately tune it out.

This is a different, more light-hearted approach...enjoy!

Ayn Rand Centre: Smoking and personal freedom

Today the Ayn Rand Centre for Individual Rights released an article describing the tobacco control community as "a cancer on American liberty". It's ironic really, calling the American Cancer Society a 'cancer'.

The article claims that smoking by-laws, taxes on cigarettes, tobacco advertising bans and lawsuits against Big Tobacco unnecessarily inconvenience smokers and tobacco companies. Smokers should be left to make their own decisions, free of interference, it argues.

So, let's get this right: the Ayn Rand Centre supports smoking everywhere without restriction, no taxes on tobacco, allowing drug dealers to advertise their product without restriction and that tobacco companies ought to be allowed to lie to protect their business and be immune from prosecution for doing so. It sounds like the 1950s and the effect of these policy reversals would be to dramatically increase smoking rates to levels seen back then, undoing 50 years of public health education and initiating a dramatic explosion of the current health crisis at untold financial and human expense.

Actually, I'm a big fan of individual freedom and responsibility myself. But can a child be expected to demonstrate the same degree of maturity and responsibility as an adult? Of course not: just watch an episode of 90210.

The problem here is that over 90% of smokers get hooked in childhood - years before they are able to exert adult thinking and maturity. Tobacco companies know this very well and have been shown to market to teens on a routine basis. This makes sense: when you kill 5,000,000 of your customers every year, you need fresh meat. It is almost impossible to get adults to start smoking, so tobacco companies use cartoon characters, cellphone-shaped packaging and candy-like flavours to promote tobacco to kids.

Is the Ayn Rand Centre really suggesting that this is OK? When you end up supporting drug dealers promoting to children because of 'personal freedom', surely you know something isn't right? Someone needs to point out to them that real adults take real responsibility, including responsibility for their families and their fellow citizens - it's what humans do in civil society. With respect to tobacco, this means protecting easily-misled children from rapacious, amoral tobacco companies looking to make a buck.

We see tens of thousands of smokers every year in our seminars. Over 90% of them started smoking as children and not one of them ever thought they would end up smoking for as long as they have. Kids fall into the nicotine trap very quickly, but it can take them a lifetime to escape.

This is the problem when an idea (personal freedom) becomes a dogma, to be slavishly followed, irrespective of the consequences. Yes, of course personal freedom is important, but it should not trump everybody else's personal freedom. Surely the right to clean air for everyone trumps an individual's right to smoke? Let's not make our children pay the price of Ms. Rand's intellectual masturbation.

It is tobacco companies, not the tobacco control movement who are cancer on American freedom. Every year they steal life from the 450,000 Americans who die from smoking, and liberty from the 8m Americans living with a smoking -related disease or condition.

Yet another happy non-smoker...

As I mentioned in my blog last week, Oct 15th was Colleen Rusholme's first anniversary of quitting. Colleen is part of Toronto's EZ-Rock breakfast team, Humble, Kim, Colleen and Rick.

She sent this lovely email through...

"I carry the words " shame" " hopelessness" and " fear" on a little piece of paper in my wallet. I pull it out sometimes as a reminder of who I used to be and how I felt about myself as a smoker. If I could go back and tell that girl that she could be a happy, non deprived non-smoker, I would. I'm free and forever grateful for this method of quitting. I only planned on quitting ONCE. And that's what I did. THANK-YOU!"

We hope that the large number of smokers who want to quit, but are too scared to try, will be inspired by your story. Thank you Colleen for sharing it...

To quit smoking in Toronto - or anywhere across North America, please visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Smoking in movies

Watch this excellent and fascinating video from Stanton Glantz's team at Smoke Free Movies.

It's called 120,000 Lives a Year and it's the story of how Big Tobacco uses Hollywood to recruit young smokers.

Colleen Rusholme's first anniversary

Congratulations to EZ-Rock's Colleen Rusholme who today celebrates her first anniversary of quitting smoking.

I met Colleen through her colleague, "Humble" Howard Glassman, who quit smoking with us five years ago next month. On air he publicly challenged Colleen - a pretty hardcore smoker - to quit smoking and Colleen, never one to shirk a challenge, accepted. I felt this was a very brave move on Colleen's part, particularly as she was experiencing many of the fears that most smokers have whenever they think about quitting ("The cigarette has always been there for me. I'll be losing my best friend!"), let alone the additional pressure of doing it in front of hundreds of thousands of listeners.

She needn't have worried though. She did brilliantly in the session we had, walked out a happy non-smoker had has stayed one ever since.

This morning, I was a guest on the Humble, Kim, Colleen and Rick breakfast show to celebrate Colleen's anniversary. Howard asked me a question I have never had before in all my years of media appearances: "Why is it so easy to quit?" What a great question! The truth is that when you have the right information, quitting can be very easy.

Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking webcasts, seminars and books provide all smokers with the information they need to quit easily and enjoyably. To find out more, visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Uh-oh: more tobacco company ethics issues

Today, the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) published a devastating article about the destruction of key documents by British American Tobacco's (BAT) Canadian subsidiary, Imperial Tobacco Canada (ITC).

In it the authors claim that BAT instructed ITC to destroy key documents that could expose the company to liability or embarrassment. ITC, rather stupidly in my view, wrote to BAT listing sixty of these documents, confirming their destruction. Using this list, these sixty documents were subsequently found in BAT's own document archives.

The documents included evidence from internal scientific reviews, as well as 47 original research studies, 35 of which examined the cancer-causing effects of smoking. The documents also describe BAT research on light and mild cigarettes, including the ways in which consumers adapted their smoking behaviour in order to get the same levels of nicotine as if they were smoking full-strength cigarettes. The documents also depict a comprehensive research program on the pharmacology of nicotine and its addictiveness, showing the central role of nicotine in smoking behaviour.

We should bear in mind that in 1992, when these documents were destroyed, tobacco companies were still denying that nicotine was addictive and that smoking caused cancer.

As we say in our seminars: Sometimes you need to ask yourself who your friends are.

See no evil...

Today, a rather self-serving Philip Morris (PM) research report looking at the effectiveness of in-store tobacco display bans was published on the PM-owned website, productdisplayban.com. In it, they conclude that the display ban in Iceland has not had any impact on the number of smokers or the amount they smoke. As a result, they say, the ban should be lifted.

But if such display bans have no effect on cigarette sales, then why does PM continue to fight their introduction with such energy and enthusiasm? And if such bans have no impact, then what's the problem with leaving them in place? Just a thought...

Winter is on the way...

As the leaves begin to turn here in the NorthEast, the smoker's heart begins to sink as they brace themselves for six months of freezing to death in order to do a drug that doesn't even get them high.

Last winter I flew into Saskatoon to run some sessions and saw something interesting at the airport. As you are probably aware, it gets pretty cold in Saskatoon. This February evening it was -28 degrees Centigrade. Like most people, my big jacket was in my main baggage, so I was waiting for my suitcase at the carousel. Another passenger - clearly a smoker - was doing the same, and getting increasingly agitated as the wait for our luggage continued. In the end he said: "Screw it, I'm outta here." and walked outside in just a T-shirt, to smoke a cigarette.

The terminal at Saskatoon Airport is totally glass-fronted, so the rest of us still at the baggage carousel could see him outside, in -28, trying to light his cigarette. He was shivering so much that he couldn't even light it, and this frustrated him even more. Within a minute or so, he couldn't even feel his hands, but he refused to give up. Eventually, a bundled-up airport employee went outside to ask if he was OK. "I'm fine" he said "I'm just getting a bit of fresh air."

Avoid the indignity of standing outside freezing your nuts off, pretending that you need fresh air when what you really need is to smoke. Quit smoking today with Allen carr's unique Easyway method by visiting us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

The cost of smoking...

When I was a heavy smoker with a young family, the price of cigarettes put a big strain on our finances.

But smokers would rather go without food than go without smokes. In a rather pathetic attempt to justify my smoking, I once worked out how much it cost per drag and it seemed like quite good value at the time. But of course I was only really conning myself.

The first cigarette you ever smoked cost you everything you have ever spent on smoking. Because if you hadn't smoked that first cigarette, you wouldn't have smoked the second, and the third...you wouldn't have bought your first pack, then your first carton....

That was one very expensive cigarette!

So how much does smoking really cost? Let's say that you are a pack-a-day smoker living somewhere in or around New York, where the average cost of a pack is $10.

Ten dollars a day comes to $70 per week, $300 per month or $3,650 a year, after tax. To net $3,650, you need to earn around $5,000 a year.

So, let's say that you start smoking comparitively late in life at 20, and that smoking kills you at 70. That's 50 years of smoking at $5,000 per year: a total of $250,000. To put this in context as of 2009, the average price of a house in the US is $257,000.

We are not suggesting that smokers quit because of the money, but what we are saying is that being a smoker is a massive financial commitment.

And of course, so far we have only talked about the financial cost of cigarettes. What about the higher health insurance rates smokers are charged? Or the reduced value of a car or home that has been used by smokers? Or the opportunity cost of investing $250,000 instead of it going up in smoke? One MSNBC report calculated that if a 40 year-old smoker quits and invests that money into their 401(k), it could be worth $400,000 by the time they retire.

And so far, we have only looked at the financial cost of smoking. What about the cost to your health, your self-respect and your freedom. And what about the people who love you? What cost are they paying for you to smoke?

The cost of smoking is more than the price of smokes.

To quit smoking easily and enjoyably use Allen Carr's unique, drug-free Easyway method. To find out more visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

More tobacco company hypocrisy?

Philip Morris is fighting the cigarette retail display ban in Ireland, claiming it is anti-competitive. Interestingly, they are not fighting an identical ban in Canada. Why not?

Could it be that, as always, it's about money? The ban suits them in Canada, where they have a strong market position, but not in Ireland, where they lag behind Gallagher.

So PM's position is not about freedom of expression after all; it's about freezing market share in markets where they do well, and trying to grow it in markets where they don't.

Reasons to quit smoking I

Non-smokers have more and better sex. http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/1-17-2006-86579.asp

Need I say more?

Another happy non-smoker

We received this email today, from R. Glassman in Toronto:

"4-and-a-half years as a happy non smoker with absolutely no possible reason to ever consider touching a cigarette again. It's that simple and easy. Once I understood that there were no possible benefits to smoking, it wasn't hard for me to never want to smoke. The seminar really worked for me!"

Thank you for taking the trouble to get in touch and very many congratulations on this wonderful achievement.

To learn more about how you can quit smoking using this simple, drug-free approach, visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

When you lit that first cigarette....

When you lit that first cigarette were you really deciding that you'd be a smoker for the rest of your life? Did you think that you'd still be smoking all these years later? If you had known that first cigarette would put you in this situation, would you have smoked it?

The vast majority of smokers have their first cigarettes as children. Under pressure from peers, they want to be one of the cool kids. The first few cigarettes are absolutely disgusting and this is what springs the trap: the young smoker just cannot accept that they could get addicted to something so disgusting that doesn't even get them high. It's this lack of a high that springs the trap. If the cigarette got us high like crack or crystal meth, we would be far more wary. The lack of a high prevents the young smoker from seeing smoking for the drug addiction it is, and so we continue to smoke, secure in the knowledge that we could not get into trouble with a drug that doesn't even get us high. The first time most people realize they have a problem is the first time they try to quit and realize they can't.

Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking has helped millions of smokers to escape from the smoking trap easily and permanently. To find out more visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Tobacco and sugar

Flavorings, especially sweeteners, have been used in US tobacco products for decades, to mask the true taste of the tobacco. The FDA has recently banned some flavourings - specifically those designed to tempt young people to start smoking.

Oregon's Junior Senator, Jeff Merkley, highlighted another tobacco industry trick. In addition to the candy-flavored tobacco, he recently exposed the problem of candy with tobacco in it. Tins of candy, with each one containing a small amount of dissolvable tobacco, have been recently test marketed in several U.S. cities, including Portland.

Merkley, working with Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio won unanimous Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approval of an amendment directing the FDA to refer the matter to the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee.

Their amendment calls for the FDA to investigate“The issue of the nature and impact of the use of dissolvable tobacco products on the public health, including such use among children.” Their amendment was attached to the bill granting the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products.

They followed up with a June 26 letter to FDA Commissioner Hamburg in which they explained:

“Dissolvable tobacco products such as Camel Orbs … come in mint and caramel flavors and look like the candies that come out of a PEZ-type dispenser. … Rather than the traditional smokeless tin that leaves a noticeable ‘ring’ in one’s back pocket, these products look like cell phones in a student’s pocket.

“We believe these products are being used as a gateway to addict children to nicotine and graduate them to cigarettes and other tobacco products. In addition, dissolvable tobacco products are being used to discourage current smokers, both youth and adult, from quitting. These types of products allow children to continue their addiction to nicotine when they are in smoke-free places such as classrooms.”

Thank you Senator Merkley...

Not even wrong

When scientists come across something spectacularly stupid, they refer to it as 'not even wrong'.

I was troubled to see an editorial in the CSU's Rocky Mountain Collegian asking the FDA to reverse its decision to ban the manufacture and sale of falvoured cigarettes. The basis for this demand: the ban is an affront to 'personal liberty'.

This demand is 'not even wrong'. Nothing is preventing the author from favouring his own cigarettes, should he or she wish, and nothing is preventing them from buying other flavoured cigarettes - in fact, all US cigarettes are flavoured with sweeteners, to mask the taste of the tobacco.

On the basis of this argument, nothing could be prohibited: coke, crack and crystal meth would all be legalised. Sadly the author does not explain how this exciting new public policy initiative would work.

The author claims that if the FDA really cared about 'the children' they would ban smoking outright, but wouldn't this be a further erosion of liberty? I think the FDA, along with public health workers, oncologists, cardiologists, pulmonologists and surgeons would love to ban smoking, but with 45m Americans addicted to this drug, prohibition is impractical.

With an outright ban not on the cards, we are left with a relatively small menu of options to deal with this public health catastrophe: prevention and cessation campaigns, smoking bans, advertising bans, plain packaging, elimination of 'power walls', taxation and de-normalisation.

So here's the argument against flavoured cigarettes:

1. Smoking kills around 5m people every year, therefore...
2. For tobacco companies to continue to make money (and boy, are they good at making money!), they need to find fresh meat to compensate for those killed by smoking
3. It is very difficult to get adult non-smokers to start smoking, therefore...
4. Tobacco companies need kids to start smoking - it's a commercial imperative and therefore...
5. Tobacco companies need to develop products that appeal to kids, for example, cigarettes with cool-sounding flavours and cellphone-like packaging

By banning flavoured cigarettes, we will not reduce youth smoking. We will stop it from getting even higher though.

Every DAY 3,500 American kids will smoke their first cigarette. For 1,000 it will turn into a life-long drug addiction and it'll kill half of them. That's why it is not only right, but also a moral imperative, to uphold this ban.

David vs. Goliath

Yesterday I attended a meeting of municipal smoking cessation workers in Ontario, Canada.

I was struck by two things: firstly, by the dedication, passion, humour and integrity of the attendees, and second, by the laughable mismatch of resources and money between these wonderful people and the tobacco industry.

If these guys had access to 1% of the money the tobacco industry spends on fighting tobacco control legislation, smoking would be a thing of the past.

Make smoking a thing of your past. Make the first move towards quitting smoking by visiting us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Flavoured tobacco products banned

Today the FDA fired its first shot across the bows of the tobacco companies by banning all flavoured tobacco products with the exception of menthol.

Quoting from an 'historic' internal tobacco company memo which plainly states plans to directly target children, Dr. Laurence Deyton of the FDA said that teen smokers are three times more likely than adult smokers to favour flavoured tobacco products.

I wonder whether they'll ban those disgusting tobacco-flavoured cigarettes?!

Whether you are smoking TwistaLime, Strawberry, Vanilla, Winter Mocha Mint or Marlboro Light, you can quit easily using Allen Carr's simple, drug-free Easyway method.

American tobacco vs. Canadian law - you decide

Rep. Jim Battle of South Carolina's article published on scnow.com serves as a reminder of how influential the tobacco industry remains at all level of politics.

His article bemoans the impact that the Canadian government's decision to ban flavoured tobacco products, which have been specifically designed to appeal to young people, will have. He says that this will have an effect on South Carolina's revenues as a major tobacco producer and must be stopped.

It is mind-boggling that anyone would place the interests of tobacco companies over public health and in particular, youth smoking. Then again, Mr. Battle is a good friend of Big Tobacco and his work in defence of them has netted campaign contributions from Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Lorillard, US Tobacco and Brown & Williamson.

Rather than propping up an industry that is already spectacularly profitable and that kills nearly half-a-million North Americans every year, perhaps South Carolina's legislators ought to be looking for new opportunities to replace the tobacco industry, which, like many of its' customers is in terminal decline.

Gosh, politics really is a dirty game...

Nicotine Replacement Therapy

Yesterday we received an email from Ann Garner of Pittsburgh, PA. She wrote: "I'm a smoker who has just become pregnant and my doctor keeps recommending that I use the nicotine patch to quit, but I've done some research and I'm not convinced it's going to help me. What should I do?'

Whilst we are reluctant to question the advice of doctors, it's difficult to understand how Ann's baby will benefit from regular doses of an addictive drug, so this is a great question.

Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) was first introduced as a quitting aid in the 1980s. Today, it comes in a variety of forms: nicotine patches, gum, nasal inhalators, lozenges, e-cigarettes, nicotine water, nicotine lollipops - the list is endless.

The idea behind NRT is that the smoking problem has two components; physical addiction to nicotine, and the psychological 'need' to smoke. Nicotine replacement is used to maintain the physical aspect of the addiction while giving the addict the chance to deal with the psychological aspect. Once that is successfully dealt with, then they can address the physical side. The only problem is that this theory is complete nonsense: nicotine addiction is the problem, how can it also be the solution? Would you give an alcoholic alcohol to get off alcohol or crack to a crack addict to help him stop using crack?

According to Clive Turner, Director of Action on Smoking and Health and long-time advocate of NRT, the long-term success rate for NRT products is around 6%. An article on whyquit.org shows that the success rate for second- or third-time NRT users is less than using nothing at all.

By contrast, Allen Carr's simple, drug-free Easyway method delivered via webcasts, books and live seminars has a 12-month success rate of 63.6% for a pack-a-day smoker. This rises to 75.8% for people who are able to take advantage of our support programme.

For a commonsense approach to quitting visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Does Allen Carr's Easyway work?

There are literally thousands of stop smoking programs, seminars, books, websites, drugs, patches, inhalers, gum, nasal sprays, and other nicotine replacement therapies, subliminal CDs, motivational DVDs, hypnotherapy, herbal remedies, laser treatments, psychological therapies, and the like. All of them have their seductive sales pitch and all of them "claim" to work. The truth is, none of them really do. Out of all the quit smoking techniques mentioned above few of them have long-term success rates much above 10%.


So what makes Allen Carr's Easyway different? Well, don't listen to us - we're biased! Instead take a look at some of the thousands of inspirational quit smoking stories from some of the millions of former smokers who have been through Allen Carr's simple, drug-free program...


"It worked for me and about 20 other people I know. Seriously." Jason Mraz, Artist


Click here to visit our Testimonials page

How to quit smoking

Got this email from Ted Fenton (www.goseeted.com)...

"I attended your seminar on November 19, 2005 in Los Angeles and was a heavy 40 to 50 cigarettes a day smoker. I have not had one since. I can't even imagine now, that I used to smoke the way I did...it's amazing! I had also tried to quit a bunch of times before....this seminar works.

Thanks for extending my life."

If Ted can do it, why not you? To find out more about Allen Carr's simple, drug-free approach to quitting, please visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Patrick Swayze

Astonishingly, some members of the anti-smoking lobby have used this tragedy to criticize Patrick Swayze for not quitting smoking.

Personally, I don't really care whether or not smoking initiates or merely accelerates pancreatic cancer, yesterday we lost a prince - a truly good man: that's what we should be focusing on.

Our condolences and thoughts are with Mr. Swayze's family at this trying time.

How Anthony Hopkins quit smoking

Oscar-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins quit many years ago using Allen Carr's Easyway method. He became such a fan that he offered to provide a voice-over for the introduction to Allen's first video.

He describes the method perfectly: "Being a smoker is like being trapped in a complicated maze. You want to get out, but you don't know where to start or which way to turn. It's as if Allen Carr has a map of this maze and can help you navigate your way out."

For a simple, drug-free quit, visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Thought for the day...

What happens to all those cigarette butts that just get tossed onto the sidewalk?

When I was a smoker I didn't give them a second thought, but cigarette butts are easily the world's biggest source of litter with 4,500,000,000,000 (that's 4.5 TRILLION) being discarded annually.

Keep America Beautfiul (www.kab.org) estimates that cigarette butts constitute 34% of all litter (food wrappers came in second place, with around 10%). On a monthly clean-up of a small section of Boynton Beach in Florida, over 5,000 butts are collected daily.

Cigarette butts contain arsenic, acetone, lead, formaldehyde, benzene, ammonia and cadmium. These chemicals seep out on contact with water, making them deadly to marine life. The filters are made of cellulose acetate, which takes decades to biodegrade.

So before you toss your butt away, think about holding onto it and throwing it in a trash can...

Or, even better, quit smoking with the world's most effective stop smoking method - Allen Carr's Easyway. For more information about this simple, drug-free approach to quitting, visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Allen Carr's Easyway live seminar in LA

We are delighted to announce that the next Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking seminar date for Los Angeles is Saturday September 26th.

The session will be held in Santa Monica at the Georgian Hotel on Ocean Avenue. The seminar runs from 10am until 4pm. As is standard at Allen Carr's Easyway seminars, attendees will be welcome to smoke throughout.

The session will be led by Damian O'Hara, President of Allen Carr North America. "I love doing sessions on the West Coast." he said "There are always tons of interesting people who attend in LA."

Allen Carr's Easyway clientele reads like a who's who of Hollywood with Oscar-winning actors and Grammy-winning musicians heading the list.

Space at the seminar is extremely restricted, with just 20 spots, 15 of which have already been reserved, so smokers wishing to attend should book now to avoid disappointment.

To find out more information about our LA seminar or to make a reservation, please visit us at http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/Seminars/GroupSessions/LosAngelesseminars.aspx

Another happy non-smoker

Today, we received this email from Jenny Evans, who attended one of our live seminars in NYC.

She says: "I never thought I could stop smoking after 45 years. How could I handle life? I didn't even remember what it was like to be a "Non-Smoker". Well, I have been smoke-free for 2 months now using the "EasyWay", and I feel great! This has been the most empowering gift I have ever given myself. I believe if I can do this.....anyone can!!!!!! I really mean that."

Thank you Jenny for sharing this inspirational story.

To find out how Jenny did it, and how you can too, please visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Tobacco is tobacco is tobacco...

In his blog at the right-wing, libertarian Cato Institute site Cato@Liberty, David Boaz says that because Philip Morris is not fighting alongside their fellow tobacco companies to overturn new advertising restrictions, we should say that this is not about "Big" Tobacco, but "Medium" Tobacco.

But I think there's a much more interesting observation here: Why aren't Philip Morris fighting along with the rest of the industry? Why are they now accepting the same advertising restrictions that througohut the 1970s and 1980s they fought tooth and nail against? I hate to sound cynical, but if all advertising is banned, no-one will ever be able to take over Philip Morris's No.1 position as market leader. No wonder Philip Morris want this ban just as much as the tobacco-control advocates, albeit for completely different reasons!

Is PM's position altruism or self-interest? You decide.

Plain packaging - the tobacco industry's worst nightmare

While American tobacco companies are going to court to try to avoid putting proper health warnings on cigarettes, there is a much bigger drama being played out in Europe, where tobacco control advocates have proposed the implementation of plain packaging for cigarettes - no camels, no colour, no chevrons, no fancy typrefaces, nothing. Just plain grey packaging with the name of the brand in simple black text.

The tobacco industry is a lot more worried about plain packaging than they are about health warnings. They know that older smokers ignore the health warnings and that younger smokers and experimenters feel that they don't apply - "I'll quit years before that happens" they tell themselves...

On the other hand, their branding, logo and typeface is really all they have left to try to appeal to customers. That's why the tobacco industry spends so much money developing sexy packaging...hot pink, cellphone shaped packs. Good thing they aren't trying to appeal to kids!

To quit smoking easily and enjoyably visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Tobacco companies and freedom of expression

I was reading Dave Melson's blog entry which described his concerns over limits to free expression in the light of the current court case in which tobacco companies are attempting to have loosened recently imposed advertising and packaging restrictions.

I share his concerns, but feel this might be a special case...

This was Allen Carr north America's response...

"I totally understand the almost visceral reaction to any potential threat to freedom of expression, but with their guiding principles of fairness and equality, if the Founding Fathers had seen the way that First Amendment rights had been so egregiously abused by certain people, institutions, industries and companies, they wouldn't have hesitated for a second to legislate against them.

The tobacco industry is surely one such case: Smoking has a truly catastrophic human, financial and societal cost. An estimated 400,000 Americans die from smoking-related diseases every year (part of the nearly 6m worldwide) to say nothing of the 8m Americans living with smoking-related health problems, the millions of loved ones left behind or the estimated $100bn spent every year on caring for smokers.

The links between smoking and cancer and heart disease were established in the early 'sixties. For FORTY YEARS the tobacco industry publicly and energetically denied, while privately acknowledging, these and hundreds of other scientific findings. Big Tobacco have used their First Amendment rights to deceive, distort, deny and lie with stunning effect.

We have a right to bear arms, but if you are convicted of a gun crime, then you are likely going to be prohibited from owning a gun in the future. I think most people would agree that this makes sense.

Likewise, if someone has been found to continually and cynically use their First Amendment rights over a forty-year period to promote an addictive product they know to cause death and disease, why wouldn't it be equally correct that their right to free expression be limited and subject to oversight in the specific areas they have been found guilty of lying in?

Don't get me wrong, this is not a sanction I would take lightly, but I feel that special cases sometimes need extraordinary actions, and in this case I sense the punishment very much fits the crime, so to speak.

Incidentally, all this bill really does is to bring the US a little closer to where every other developed nation is on tobacco control already. The Australians, Canadian and Europeans have had these warnings and this type of advertising restrictions for years.

By the tobacco industry's deeds shall ye know them. Sometimes you know the right side of an argument just by seeing who is on the other side..."

Quit smoking success rates: Nicotine patch

Every day we get visitors to our site asking about the success rate for other quit smoking methods, so today I would like to focus on one of the most popular (and least effective!) quit smoking aids: the nicotine patch.

The nicotine patch is an adhesive patch that releases nicotine into the bloodstream. It is marketed as a quit smoking aid, and for years manufacturers have claimed that the patch "double your chances of quitting" (this claim appears on the US Surgeon General's office, Health Canada, Cancer Society and Heart Assocation websites) but double it from what to what? From 50% to 100% or from 1% to 2%?

Believe it or not, it is actually much harder than you think to find out even something this straightforward. The reason for this is that researchers rarely quote an actual success rate. Instead they compare the success of a treatment to placebo or to no treatment and quote the difference as an Odds Ratio (OR). So if a treatment is twice as effective as placebo, it has an OR of 2. If it's half as effective the OR would be 0.5.

There have been hundreds of studies looking into the effectiveness of the nicotine patch. Cochrane's Review, an independent body examining evidence-based treatments, identified 111 trials covering over 40,000 smokers and concluded that the nicotine patch has an OR of 1.66 vs. placebo.

So, if you slap a nicotine patch on, then you have a 66% better chance of quitting than if you wore a patch with no nicotine. This is interesting to me. If nicotine replacement really worked, you would expect it to be two, three or even five times higher than placebo or using nothing at all.

Clive Bates, Director of Action on Smoking and Health in the UK and one of the most vocal supporters of nicotine replacement therapy sheds some light on this issue. In a post on a discussion thread in April 2002, Mr. Bates wrote: "The unaided quit rate is about 3% success per attempt. NRT doubles that to 6%."

So, according to one of its biggest supporters, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) has a success rate of 6% or, put another way, a 94% failure rate.

Allen Carr was dismissive of NRT from the beginning. He said "Telling a nicotine addict to stop using nicotine by taking nicotine is a bit like telling an alcoholic to drink beer instead of wine."

Ellen DeGeneres said it best: "The nicotine patch only works when you put one over each eye so you can't find your cigarettes!"

For a simple, no-BS, drug-free approach to quitting, visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Leopards never change their spots

Today I would like to thank the tobacco industry for reminding everyone how 'moral' they really are as their court case against the FDA kicks off in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

According to the tobacco companies who are the plaintiffs in the case, President Obama's Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act intrudes on their first amendment rights.

The Act, which was signed into law on June 22nd 2009, brings the US into line with the rest of the developed world in curtailing tobacco advertising and introducing graphic health warnings on pack.

There are three aspects of this case I find interesting: firstly, Philip Morris - America's biggest tobacco company, is not involved. Why not? Well, believe it or not, they actually want the legislation to be enacted. Why? Because they are the market leader by far and if advertising is banned, then that's the way it'll stay.

Secondly, the industry has chosen a Kentucky jurisdiction because as a key tobacco state, they feel it more likely that they'll get a sympathetic hearing.

Thirdly, the industry insists that it only markets to adults, and that all communication are aimed at adult smokers, trying to encourage them to switch brands. But this is clearly nonsense. Why spend billions of dollars every year competing for a sector only worth a few hundred million?

The tobacco industry has targeted kids for decades. In their own words...

"…the lower age limit for the profile of young smokers is to remain at 14."

"If you are really and truly not going to sell to children, you are going to be out of business in 30 years."

"[Brown & Williamson] will not support a youth smoking program which discourages young people from smoking."

"We have been asked by our client to come up with a package design... a design that’s attractive to kids.

"We reserve that right [to smoke] for the poor, the young, the black and the stupid."

R.J. Reynolds was once asked if they were targeting junior high school kids or younger. The reply? "They got lips? We want them."

Richard Daynard, a professor at the Northeastern School of Law in Boston and chairman of its Tobacco Products Liability Project, said: ''They want this stuff stopped in its tracks so they can keep pitching cigarettes to kids."

Business as usual then...

How Ashton Kutcher quit smoking...

Ashton Kutcher: actor, director, prankster and now...non-smoker!

Listen to Ashton talk about how he quit smoking using Allen Carr's unique Easyway method. You can see him talk about it on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno by clicking here. You will also find testimonials from Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Richard Branson, Ellen DeGeneres, Jason Mraz, Lou Reed, Stewart Copeland and David Blaine.

We want to thank Ashton - and all our other celebrity fans - for going public with this and for spreading the word.

To find out more about this simple, drug-free approach to quitting, please visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

More quit smoking scammers

I recently contacted a company called I Quit Smoking, who claim an 80-90% success rate using laser 'therapy'.

Out of interest I asked what evidence they had to support this astonishing claim - particularly in the light of Cochrane's independent, evidence-based review into acupuncture, auricular and laser therapies, which concluded that "There is no consistent evidence that acupuncture, acupressure, laser therapy or electrostimulation are effective for smoking cessation" and "The review did not find consistent evidence that active acupuncture or related techniques increased the number of people who could successfully quit smoking vs. using placebo or sham acupuncture."

When I asked them to comment on this apparent inconsistency, I didn't hear from them again.

I was also a little suspicious of their testimonials. They quote a testimonial from a Canadian smoker who apparently quit in 2001, despite the company not coming to Canada until 2008. They quote testimonials from Italy and Austria, despite having no operations there. Smells a bit fishy to me!

For a simple, honest, BS-free approach to quitting smoking, please visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Allen Carr's Easyway featured on Forbes.com

Back in July I was interviewed by Kym McNicholas at Forbes for her Personal Best feature.

Here's the link...http://video.forbes.com/fvn/personalbest/why-people-still-smoke-allen-carr-easyway-stop-smoking

I'm so happy that the mainstream media is catching on to Allen Carr's unique Easyway method.

Thanks Kym, for a terrific piece...

To find out more about quitting smoking using this simple, drug-free approach, please visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

Jason Mraz quits with Allen Carr's Easyway

Pop star Jason Mraz, most famous for his beautiful song I'm Yours, is the most recent celebrity to quit using Allen Carr's simple, drug-free Easyway method. He joins others such as Sir Anthony Hopkins, Anjelica Huston, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Goldie Hawn and many, many more...

Mr. Mraz says of Easyway: "It worked for me and about twenty of my friends. Seriously." You can read his relevant MySpace blog entry here.

Thank you Jason for sharing your Easyway experience with the rest of the world.

To find out more about how to quit smoking using Allen Carr's Easyway please visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

More stupidity from Philly

In today's Philadelphia Inquirer Patrick McNally laments the treatment of smokers at Citizens Bank Field where the Phillies ply their trade.

A former smoker himself he 'sympathizes with the urge to light up even though...it's a dangerous habit."

Mr. McNally says: "Cigarettes are dangerous, but the same could be said of the hot dogs, pretzels, and beer sold in the ballpark. Yet I was able to buy them and walk back to my seat to enjoy my doughy, salty, fatty, alcoholic treats."

Hot dogs and pretzels are hardly health foods, but to compare them to an addictive drug that kills nearly 6,000,000 around the world every year is ridiculous. Smoking isn't a "dangerous habit", it's a drug addiction that kills half of the people that can't stop.

In addition, eating hot dogs and pretzels don't create dangers for other people. There is no second-hand trans-fat is there?

Mr. McNally should realize that it is smoking, not smokers, that is the target here.

If you are one of the 80% of smokers who want to quit, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Smoking and stress relief

Today I wanted to take a look at an article about smokers from the Chicago Tribune. I'm happy that the media covers this important topic, but the fact that they just trot out the same illusions about smoking and quitting is a bit depressing...

In particular, the article focuses on smoking as a stress reliever.

Smoker Keith Shannon says that a break-in scuppered his most recent attempt to quit. "After getting hit over the head with a gun, I needed a cigarette." This is presumably based on the well known fact that smoking a cigarette is an excellent cure for being hit over the head with a gun.

"It helps calm my nerves" Mr. Shannon says of the drug that elevates heart rate and blood pressure and causes the release of cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline (the 'fight or flight' chemical). Does that sound like 'calming the nerves' to you? Some stress relief! More like a recipe for a heart attack.

Three pack-a-day smoker Deborah Israel says "Cigarettes are just adult pacifiers, you stick 'em in your mouth when you get stressed." Three packs a day is a lot of stress relief isn't it? If the cigarette worked to relieve stress, then why is the chain-smoking Ms. Israel stressed at all? Ironically, she says that quitting smoking would be too expensive as her company plan does not cover quit smoking programs. This is somewhat ironic coming from someone who spends over $7,500 a year on buying smokes.

Smoking to relieve stress is like drinking alcohol to get sober. The problem is that the illusion of smoking and stress relief is a subtle one. When a smoker puts out a cigarette, they go into physical withdrawal from nicotine. This is a barely noticeable feeling, a bit like hunger or very mild anxiety. The longer the smoker goes without smoking, the more pronounced the feeling becomes. When the smoker lights up, this slightly anxious edgy feeling disappears - leading the smoker to think that smoking relieves stress, when in fact withdrawal from the previous cigarette created that additional stress in the first place.

Until smokers can see through that illusion, they will have a desire or perceived need to smoke whenever they are in a stressful situation. They will need to use willpower to overcome that desire. This creates a conflict: part of them wants to smoke, but part wants to quit and it is this mental conflict (not physical withdrawal) that makes quitting challenging for those using willpower.

Allen Carr's Easyway method removes the need for willpower by enabling smokers to change their belief that smoking releives stress. Eliminating this belief eliminates the desire to smoke in stressful situations and with no desire to smoke, it really doesn't take willpower not to.

To find out more about this simple, drug-free approach to quitting, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Sad, weak editorial from Kansas

Today the Topeka Capital Journal announced that it was opposing Councilwoman Deborah Swank's proposal to drag Topeka into the 21st century by banning smoking in workplaces.

They believe instead that 'the marketplace' should decide. Presumably they mean that the millions spent by the tobacco industry on lobbying to fight this type of legislation should decide. Having public health policy driven by companies whose products kill an estimated 400,000 Americans every year is less than ideal.

Just because there is a market for something doesn't mean that the market should 'decide' what is right and wrong. There is a market for crack and crystal meth, but no-one is suggesting that crack dealers should develop public drug policy. Public health for the large majority should trump an individual's 'right' to smoke.

As a reader pointed out: "So, when I get lung cancer from breathing all the second-hand smoke lingering in public places, just exactly which part of the marketplace will pay for my lost health and health care?"

Newspapers need to get with the program - smokers have. Recent research shows that over 70% want to quit. To quit smoking easily and enjoyably, visit www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Allen Carr seminars now available in Denver, Houston and Dallas

Allen Carr North America is delighted to announce the launch of our seminar program in Denver, Houston and Dallas.

The seminars are conducted by Denver-native Collene Curran, who quit smoking using Allen Carr's Easyway method in 2005.

To find out dates and locations please visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com.

More BS from Britain's NHS

Britain's National Health Service (NHS) has just issued a self-congratualtory press release about its quit smoking service, claiming a 40% "success rate". This is spin, laid on top of spin, with a bit of spin on the side.
Quit smoking success rates are usually measured at 6 months. The NHS's 40% "success rate" is after just four weeks. And it gets worse...as the NHS's primary recommendation is to use nictoine replacement therapy (NRT), that a large proportion of the 40% of "successful" quitters are still using nicotine!
Research shows that with smokers quitting using willpower or NRT there is significant relapse rates between 4 weeks and 6 months, so the real life success rate is likely to be closer to the 5-7% suggested by the independent, evidence-based resource Cochrane's.
In addition, the 40% success rate is of all smokers who set a quit date with the NHS service. What about those that didn't? Ah, well, we'll just forget those shall we?
And in terms of value for money the NHS service gets worse, not better, with their cost per quitter up 26% vs. 2008.
For a no-BS, drug-free, pain-free quit smoking method, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com