Talk about self-interest...

The Winston-Salem Journal actually believes that the tobacco industry should remain unregulated by the FDA. In an editorial dated October 29th, it describes the efforts to have a product that kills 450,000 Americans every year regulated like every other drug in the country as "wrongheaded government intervention".

So presumably it is also wrong to regulate other harmful (or potentially harmful) products like heroin, cars, airlines, medications and guns? These products kill far fewer than smoking but are rightly subject to regulation or prohibition because of their potential for harm.

It is morally and ethically bankrupt to put the business interests of drug dealers before the lives of their victims. I know Winston-Salem is in the heart of tobacco country but DON'T THEY GET IT? The Journal should be ashamed of itself...

If you want sense instead of nonsense, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Smoking and the recession

According to research conducted by Harris on behalf of the American Legacy Foundation, low-income (defined as earning less than $35,000 a year) smokers are smoking more as a result of the recession. Nearly 40% of such smokers report smoking more as a result of the financial crisis.

The report is published at the same time as another worrying report - this one showing that one in four children in low-income smoking households don't have enough to eat. This figure is three times higher than in non-smoking households.

The clear implication here is that smokers are spending more on smokes, and less on food for their children.

It is at such times when you can see smoking for the unrewarding addiction it really is.

Quit smoking and start saving. To quit smoking with no willpower, no weight gain and no withdrawal pangs, visit www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com

If you are addicted to nicotine gum...

I'm ordinarily a really big fan of John Tierney's Science blog in the NY Times, but I have to take exception with today's entry entitled Should Obama Take Nicotine Pledge? (http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/should-obama-quit-nicorettes/?scp=3&sq=smoking&st=cse)

Here are my concerns.

Firstly, Sen. Obama is described as using nicotine gum 'successfully', but then we are told that he is still ocasionally smoking. I struggle to characterize this as success because (i) he is still addicted to nicotine and (ii) he is still smoking. What is successful about this?

Secondly, Mr. Teirney speculates 'What if the nicotine gum strategy is so successful that Mr. Obama is capable of weaning himself from nicotine altogether? If he reaches the White House, should he give up the chemical that he relied on during his career and his campaign?'

The most obvious problem with this is that Mr. Teirney implicitly assumes that at least part of Sen. Obama's success came because he is addicted to nicotine. But where is the evidence to support this claim? Perhaps Sen. Obama's success is nothing to do with nicotine. Perhaps he is successful because he's smart, hard-working and dedicated. In fact, with the stigma associated with smoking so profound these days, we might even argue that he is successful despite being addicted to nicotine, not because of it.

In support of this theory that weaning himself off nicotine might be a bad thing for Sen. Obama and for America, Mr. Teirney (also a nicotine gum chewer) quotes his colleague Jane Brody, 'Among the...effects of nicotine are arousal, relaxation, improved mood, reduced anxiety and stress, better concentration and faster reaction time.'

It reads like an ad for nicotine gum. Who wouldn't want these things?

But let's think about this for a moment: how can a drug that creates arousal also relax you? Aren't they more or less opposites? And how does a drug that relaxes also improve reaction time? Doesn't this seem contradictory to you? And if nicotine reduces anxiety and stress, then why aren't smokers less anxious and less stressed than non-smokers? In fact, recent research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates the opposite - that smokers are substantially more prone to depression, anxiety, high blood pressure and panic disorders than non-smokers. And if smoking aids concentration, then why aren't smokers smarter than non-smokers?

It gets worse. Ms. Brody goes on to explain "When deprived, smokers report withdrawal symptoms that include irritability, depression, restlessness, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, increased hunger, insomnia, a craving for tobacco, difficulty getting along with others and a feeling that life lacks pleasure."

Like most addicts, including myself when I was a smoker, Mr. Teirney appears to accept that the removal of these 'withdrawal symptoms' is a good reason to continue to consume nicotine. But we don't see the obvious: that non-smokers do not feel irritable, depressed, restless, anxious, distracted, hungry, sleepless, anti-social or dysphoric because they can't smoke. In fact, it is smokers, not non-smokers who suffer from these symptoms. So instead of giving nicotine the credit for alleviating these symptoms, perhaps we should be blaming the previous dose for creating them.

Mr. Teirney poses the question: 'Do do we really want someone in the White House going through nicotine withdrawal?' The answer, I think, is no. Mr. Teirney concludes that Sen. Obama should therefore continue to chew the gum if voted into office. However this would merely guarantee that he would continue to experience withdrawal indefinitely. People who do not smoke or chew nicotine gum do not go through nicotine withdrawal. Those who do, do. On that basis, Sen. Obama should stop chewing the gum.

Mr. Teirney's piece is a classic case of really smart people falling for illusions due to the subtlety of the drug nicotine: Smokers spend most of their time in very mild withdrawal and over time they begin to perceive this as their 'normal' state; smoking temporarily removes this feeling. In this way smokers begin to get tricked into seeing the removal of withdrawal symptoms as genuine pleasure or relief.

If a smoker sleeps for six hours at night, when they wake up they're 97% nicotine-free! Even very heavy smokers do this as a matter of routine. You are 100% nicotine-free and technically no longer an addict after just 3 days.

These 'withdrawal symptoms' - depression, anxiety, over-eating etc. are actually nothing to do with nicotine withdrawal. For a start many of them come weeks or even months after all the nicotine has left your body. They can't be anything to do with nicotine.

They are the symptoms of mental conflict experienced by people who are trying to stop using nicotine but still believe that it provided some benefit, pleasure or crutch. They want to quit, but they still want nicotine and this conflict can create all manner of symptoms. Allen Carr's Easyway removes this conflict: remove the conflict, remove the symptoms.

Radio active...

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of working with Colleen Rusholme of the 97.3 EZ-Rock breakfast show in Toronto.

I met the anchor of the show, Humble Howard Glassman, four years ago, and helped him and his wife Randee, quit. Howard was a HUGE smoker and has been a massive supporter of our work ever since.

When he got his new gig on EZ-Rock, he made it his mission to get his co-host, Colleen, to quit. Colleen had never tried to quit and had a lot of trepidation, but Howard is a very persuasive guy!Eventually he persuaded her to agree to see me.

On Tuesday I was a guest on the show and met a terrified Colleen for the first time. They announced on the show that Colleen would be quitting, and I think that put a lot of additional pressure on her.

We met yesterday for a session out by Toronto airport. Colleen was absolutely awesome - smart, funny, attentive and open-minded. By the end of the session she was a happy non-smoker.

I was invited on the show again this morning to see how things went and I was thrilled to hear Colleen so happy to be smoke-free. She couldn't keep the smile off her face...

That was a good day...

To find out more about Colleen and Easyway, visit us at http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/

Scam alert - QuitSmokingRankings.com

The people who run the QuitSmokingRankings (QSR) website must think smokers are REALLY stupid. The site claims to provide smokers with 'independent research' into 17 quit smoking products, but a cursory glance at their research 'methodology' suggests that the whole thing is designed to lure desperate smokers into buying expensive but third-rate infomercial products.

My skeptical antenna was twitching from the second I got to their site.

Firstly, they claim to provide "in-depth reviews and rankings of leading quit smoking products" but four of the five products they recommend are herbal or homeopathic products, which real scientific research has conclusively shown to be ineffective. For example, all of their recommended herbal products are based on the substance lobeline, an alkaloid extract of the flowering herb lobelia. Here is what the esteemed Cochrane Collaboration had to say about lobeline for smoking cessation: "There is no evidence available from long-term trials that lobeline can aid smoking cessation." It adds, "Even short-term studies do not indicate a consistent effect on smoking behaviour."

This is a scientist's way of saying "It doesn't work". But despite this damning indictment from real scientists, QSR claims: "Herbs have shown overwhelming evidence that they work." Sadly, they do not quote any studies, research, testimonials or statistics to support this claim, and this is the second problem.

QSR makes enormous claims for the products they promote - bigger claims, in fact, than many of the manufacturers themselves - but unless they are supported by evidence (in the case of smoking cessation, evidence is usually via controlled studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals) they are worse than useless. Anyone can claim a 100% success rate - show me the data.

QSR claims to have used stringent criteria for their product selection: "effectiveness, longevity, safety, side effects, quickness of results and success rates." Allegedly based on 'consumer feedback' and their own research they give brands marks out of ten based on each criteria. Looking at the effectiveness 'data', QSR claims that the success rates for their top 5 products are 100%, 97.5%, 95%, 92.5% and 90% respectively. To anyone who works in the smoking cessation field, these figures are laughable.

For example, their fifth ranked product - for which they claim a 90% success rate - is a nicotine patch. According to Cochrane, based on genuinely independent, peer-reviewed data from over 100 clinical trials, the success rate for the nicotine patch is approximately 10%. How does QSR account for this huge difference? I know which figure I believe.

These people should be ashamed of themselves, but my guess is that they'll be too busy dealing with customer complaints, as the makers of some of the products they promote are. For example, the FTC slapped Smokeaway (formerly a QSR recommended product) with a $1.3m fine for deceptive marketing practices. In May 2008 the makers of another QSR recommended product - Zero Nicotine - were sued by the Federal Trade Commission for misrepresentation, failure to disclose material facts, the unauthorised billing of customer's credit cards and false product claims. Amazingly QSR ranks this company's reputation and customer service as 'very good'.

I welcome dialogue with QuitSmokingRankings.com, or the makers any of the scam products they promote, in fact, I beg them to get in touch to have an open debate about success rates and research.

If you are looking to quit smoking, start at http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/ and click on the success rates tab to see a comprehensive review of the success rates of all major -and some not so major - quit methods.

Tobacco industry - bottom of the heap

Today Harris Interactive, one of the respected names in market research, published their annual report into public attitudes towards twenty key industries. http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/template.NDM/news/more/?javax.portlet.tpst=0b2c9a4dd5f89b80977dd367cc87b42f_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_0b2c9a4dd5f89b80977dd367cc87b42f_viewID=news_view_popup&javax.portlet.prp_0b2c9a4dd5f89b80977dd367cc87b42f_newsLang=en&javax.portlet.prp_0b2c9a4dd5f89b80977dd367cc87b42f_ndmHsc=v2*A1216119600000*B1218747956000*DgroupByDate*J2*L1*N1000837*ZBIG%20CHANGES%20IN%20PUBLIC%20ATTITUDES%20TOWARD%20DIFFERENT%20INDUSTRIES%20SINCE%20LAST%20YEAR&javax.portlet.prp_0b2c9a4dd5f89b80977dd367cc87b42f_newsId=20080807005140&beanID=202776713&viewID=news_view_popup&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

The table is topped by supermarkets, online search engines, computer harware companies, software companies, hospitals and Internet Service Providers.

And the industries at the bottom of the table? Only four industries had a negative score (meaning that more people had negative views of the industry than neutral or positive views) and it is the usual suspects: managed care, health insurance and oil companies, but one industry is far below the others. With a score so stunningly bad (-43) the tobacco industry truly owns the title of America's most hated and least respected industry. They have done so much to earn this award. Parents of tobacco company executives must feel so proud of their children...not.

To see the tobacco industry for what it really is, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com
To download Allen Carr's expose of the tobacco industry visit www.allencarr.com and download his book Scandal for free.

This is what tobacco lobbying money buys...

Every year, tobacco companies spend millions of dollars lobbying various state and federal bodies. This is an example of what that money buys.

Congressman Richard Burr is a Republican representing North Carolina's 5th District. He is also Congress's biggest recipient of money from Big Tobacco. RJ Reynolds and its law firm are Burr's biggest contributors while collectively U.S. tobacco manufacturers have given Burr more money than any other member of the House of Representatives, according the the non-partisan watchdog the Center for Responsive Politics.

Surprise, surprise, Mr. Burr opposes the bill passed last week in the House that gives the FDA regulatory authority over the tobacco industry which, unbelievably, currently escapes any kind of federal oversight and is essentially an unregulated product.

Mr. Burr's opposition is based on two factors: firstly, he argues that far from improving public health, FDA oversight of tobacco "could do more harm than good". His basis for this truly astonishing claim is that the legislation would require tobacco companies to do what everyone else in the food and drug business does - test their products for safety and efficacy before launching them. His argument is that this might prevent tobacco companies from bringing reduced-harm products to market.

The fact is that it is the tobacco companies themselves that have not been particularly interested in developing such products, because a reduced-harm cigarette might imply that the original product was unsafe. This would effectively constitute an admission that smoking was inherently dangerous - something the tobacco industry could never afford to do because it would expose them to substantial liability. This point is discussed at length in Richard Kluger's Pulitzer-prize winning expose of the US tobacco industry, Ashes to Ashes.

In 1964 the Surgeon General first linked smoking with lung cancer and heart disease. Since then, the industry has had over 40 years to create a reduced-harm product in a market free from any regulation but has failed to do so. In that time an estimated 20m Americans have died from smoking-related diseases. Enough. The tobacco industry is NOT in the business of saving smokers, and it is self-serving and egregiously disrespectful to try to pretend it is.

Mr. Burr's second concern is that gaining oversight over tobacco would 'severely impede the FDA's core mission'. According to the FDA website, their core mission is described thus: "The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of...drugs, biological products,...(and) our nation’s food supply. The FDA is also responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medicines and foods more effective, safer, and more affordable; and helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health."

It is difficult to see how gaining regulatory oversight for a product that kills 400,000 Americans annually is 'severely impeding' the FDA's protection of the public health. Quite the opposite actually - it is exactly what the FDA was set up to do.

Mr. Burr argues that the FDA is a busy agency and that taking responsiblity for tobacco products would stretch their resources too much. But this is like cutting your head off to cure a headache. If the FDA needs a bigger budget to handle this extended remit, then rather than allow a business that kills nearly half-a-million Americans a year to continue to escape Federal oversight, let's get a bigger budget. So here's an idea: implement a $1 federal tax on a pack of smokes to fund the FDA's work in overseeing tobacco. The US has (by far) the lowest tobacco tax rate of any developed nation. The current tax on a pack of smokes is 39 cents. To put this into perspective the tax rates in Europe and Canada vary between $2 and $10 per pack. A $1 increase in Federal tobacco tax would still leave the US with the cheapest cigarettes in the Western world, and also create an estimated $9 billion in additional revenue - more than enough to fund FDA oversight of tobacco, in fact nearly enough to fund the whole agency!

In advancing Big Tobacco's interests over those of American consumers, Mr. Burr is choosing money over humanity - a campaign contribution over the lives of the 400,000 Americans killed by this awful drug every year. I have never seen a stronger argument for campaign finance reform and for getting business out of politics.

Freedom = drug addiction? I don't think so...

Today, a newly-formed 'smoker's rights' group - Cigar Rights of America - announced its four day "Freedom Tour" starting next week in NYC.

What is especially interesting is that this smoker's right group has not been set up by smokers and nor does not have any regular, man-in-the-street smokers as members. Does it not seem odd that a smoker's rights group doesn't actually feature any smokers?

The group, which has been established and funded by - yep, you guessed it - cigar manufacturers, is attempting to teach smokers how to protest against the implementation of smoke-free legislation across the US under the guise of protecting freedom.

Nicotine is the most addictive substance known to man. Trying to reposition drug addiction as 'freedom' is shameful and, I think, extremely distasteful and disrespectful to the 45m Americans addicted to this awful drug. Especially to the estimated 450,000 Americans that will die of smoking this year and the further 8m Americans living with a smoking-related condition, or their families

Smoking is not a game, or a pleasure or a 'freedom', and it sickens me that people within the tobacco industry continue to see fit to ignore the shocking price American society pays to this terrible addiction, just to make a buck.

To break free from the slavery of smoking visit www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

The true cost of smoke breaks

Smokers are under pressure at work. Today smoke breaks, once an accepted part of the work day are frowned upon and in some cases, even banned altogether - as Karen Krindle of Rochester, NY found to her cost.

Ms. Krindle, a paralegal, was terminated by her employer because she failed to comply with a written policy banning smoke breaks. She applied for unemployment benefits and was awarded $3,000. However the state Labour Department challenged this, claiming that Ms. Krindle had misrepresented the reasons for her dismissal. They argued that she was dismissed for misconduct - in which case she has no right to any benefits. The Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court agrees, and Ms. Krindle may be forced to pay back the $3,000 she received in benefits.

Her appeal is based on the argument that banning smoke breaks is unfair to smokers, who use them to "Re-energize and become less crabby".

But as Allen Carr pointed out, why don't non-smokers need to take breaks to make them less "crabby"? And if smoking "re-energizes" then why don't smokers have more energy than non-smokers?

Do you think that Ms. Krindle will get a sympathetic hearing in her appeal? I don't. Smokers are detested by today's society, but I have always felt this to unfair. Allen Carr once said "Smoking is the problem, not smokers", and how true that is. Most smokers got addicted to nicotine as children or young adults. How can we blame them for a mistake they made as a child?

Smokers: if you are looking for a way to quit smoking where you are not judged to be weak, selfish and stupid, but are instead treated with intelligence, dignity and respect then we'll see you at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

She said it with a straight face...

Commenting on the $1.15bn fine levied on Canada's two largest tobacco companies for smuggling cigarettes Imperial Tobacco spokesperson Catherine Doyle said "We realize...we are going to take a hit to our reputation because of this."

What 'reputation' would that be? When your company is part of an industry that makes a product that kills 4 million people every year, I wouldn't have thought that there was much of a reputation to protect.

You've got to be kidding me...

In the week when it is announced that after years of escaping oversight by any federal body, the tobacco industry is finally going to be regulated by the FDA, the LA Times has seen fit to publish an article about athletes who smoke. This is a link to the article: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-he-smoking4-2008aug04,0,4646024.story

As you can imagine, it's a fairly short article.

It features five athletes: Rob McCool who after less than ten years of intermittent smoking notices diminished lung capacity, despite a gruelling training regime; Jeff Myers, who sees himself as a casual smoker, despite having smoked half-a-pack a day every single day for the past 13 years and who promised himself he would stop on his thirtieth birthday - five years ago; Simi Singer, who has smoked on and off for twenty-five years and is clearly desperate to quit. She seems embarrased by her smoking working, as she does, at Mt. Sinai; Jon Delaney, a self-described recovering addict for who intends to quit as soon as possible and Nicole Fitzpatrick, who wants to be a non-smoker but feels that she would be missing out on something so cannot quit and smokes 5 to 10 cigarettes a week.

The final sentence of the article reads "But for now, smoking and exercise continue to run in sync" but this doesn't make sense. 94% of the runners polled in the survey the author quotes do not smoke and one-third of those that do are so ashamed of it that they only smoke in secret. A detailed analysis of the five athletes mentioned indicates that four actively want to quit and the other wants to cut down dramatically.

The point of all this is simple. There are a very few athletes who smoke, but only because they don't know how to quit. Every single one of them would rather be a non-smoker.

Reading through the stories of these athletes is heartbreaking. They want to quit, but believe that smoking gives them some comfort or pleasure, or that it helps them manage their weight. So long as they believe these things they will have desire to smoke, and if they try to quit, they'll need to use willpower to overcome that desire to smoke. This is what makes quitting difficult using the willpower path.

Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking makes it easy to quit smoking by challenging the beliefs upon which the desire to smoke is based. By exposing these beliefs as illusory it is possible to completely change the way the smoker sees smoking and remove the desire to smoke. With no desire to smoke, it's easy not to.

If any of the athletes featured in this article want to quit smoking, they would be welcome to attend our next LA seminar free of charge.

Stop press!!!!! Nicotine is a DRUG!

Yesterday the House of Representatives at long last passed a bill giving the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), for years a thorn in the tobacco industry's side, sponsored the bill, which will further restrict tobacco advertising and will ban flavored cigarettes which are designed to appeal to young people.

The bill is almost certain to be vetoed by a tobacco industry friendly White House. President Bush's ties to the tobacco industry are strong and deep. Karl Rove, until last year Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff and political Svengali, was formally on Philip Morris's payroll from 1991-1996 as a political intelligence operative. Another of Bush's close friends and advisors, Haley Barbour, who was Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1993-1997 and is considered by many to be a potential Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008, has strong tobacco ties. In 2001 his lobbying company Barbour, Griffith & Rogers was named by Fortune as the most powerful in the nation and it has made millions in fees from lobbying on behalf of tobacco companies.

Back in September 1999 Martin Feldman, a tobacco industry analyst with Salomon Smith Barney said "The prospect of Bill Clinton gone and a George Bush presidency makes the industry almost giddy." And President Bush has not disappointed. He has resisted federal tax hikes on tobacco products, he has advocated tort reform which heavily favours the makers of dangerous products such as cigarettes, he has refused to ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control - the worldwide agreement to prevent children from starting to smoke and restricting tobacco companies advertising and promotional activity designed to recruit new, young smokers.

In outlining White House opposition to the FDA taking authority over tobacco, Health & Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt suggests that the FDA has no expertise in the field.

It's funny - I'd have thought that an organzation that was "responsible for protecting public health by assuring the saftey, efficacy and security of human drugs..." and has been doing so effectively since 1862 was EXACTLY what we needed here. If they don't have expertise in the field, who does?

Ontario bans in-store cigarette displays

On May 31st (coincidentally World No Tobacco Day) the government of Ontario banned so-called 'power wall' displays of tobacco products in stores selling cigarettes.

With so many restrictions on advertising and promotion of tobacco products, the power wall in the convenience store was one of the last bastions of tobacco promotion. Some critics have labelled this move as petty and vindictive, but they are missing the larger point. The display bans are not to 'remove temptation' among former smokers or to hope that smokers somehow forget they smoke if they don't see the display. The bans are designed with children in mind.

Tobacco companies want children to think that it is normal and natural for people to smoke, that smoking is popular among adults and that it is OK to smoke. The power wall displays are designed to reinforce these beliefs. By covering the displays, the products are de-normalised. Cigarettes are no longer perceived as being equivalent to soap powder or candy - regular products consumed by regular people.

I worked in tobacco marketing for seven years and the idea of covering up of power walls absolutely terrified the tobacco companies, to the degree that they fought its introduction tooth and nail in court. They felt that it would seriously limit their ability to establish brand awareness of their products among young children. And they are right to be frightened. These bans will lead to fewer teens perceiving smoking as normal, which will lead to lower levels of teen smoking. And if they don't get you as a teen, then they probably won't get you at all...

To find out more about how the tobacco inductry manipulates children, visit us at http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/ and take a look at our links page.

Quit smoking drug companies slug it out...

Drug comany Glaxo has been quick to try to take advantage of their comeptitor Pfizer's problems.
With the recent announcement by the Federal Aviation Authority banning the use of Pfizer's Chantix among commercial pilots and air traffic controllers due to concern over its' safety, Glaxo marketers have generously offered pilots and air traffic controllers 48 free nicotine lozenges.
However they are not publicising two things: firstly that a full programme of lozenges comprises over 900 lozenges and that the program will cost the pilots an additional $500 to complete, and secondly, that according to research published by industry consultants, the success rate of the lozenge is around 7%.
So, if you're a pilot wanting to quit, you can spend $500 on a product with a 7% success rate or you can visit us www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Chantix - more bad news...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has banned the use of Chantix among America's pilots and air traffic controllers. The move comes as a response to research released by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices. The research details 988 'serious' incidents involving Chantix in the fourth quarter of 2007.


This follows hot on the heels of the FDA's February's public health advisory about Chantix, which warned users of the elevated risk of 'serious psychiatric symptoms' and even that some users had committed suicide.


For a natural, safe, effective, drug-free approach to quitting smoking, please visit us at http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/

Quit smoking objective: tobacco-free or nicotine-free?

I have just received in my inbox a wonderful self-congratulatory press release from a major smoking cessation service provider. In it they pat themselves on the back for achieving their highest ever success rate in the first quarter of 2008. The problem is that they are defining 'success' as being tobacco-free rather than nicotine-free.

When we dig deeper we find that a significant number of the 'successes' are continuing to use the nicotine patch or gum. Research shows that of the 6-8% of gum users who successfully quit smoking, more than half become addicted to the gum. Further research shows that many people who remain addicted to nicotine ultimately relapse back to smoking.

I also note from their research that they were only able to follow-up with the 51% of their customers who completed the survey. What about the rest?

So, of the 14,428 people surveyed, the 'success rate' is based on the responses from just 7,300, and some of the people counted as successes are still using nicotine. In this kind of research it is usually the protocol to count non-respondents as still smoking. In this case their much-trumpeted 'success rate' of 44.5% (tobacco-free, not nicotine-free remember) at six months falls to 22.7%. As those still addicted to nicotine drift back to smoking, this figure would be expected to drop further...

Compare this to the 12-month, nicotine-free success rate of 53.3% for attending Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking seminar.

To get the facts, not the spin, please visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Light and mild? Deadly and deceitful

Are light and mild cigarettes 'milder' or 'lighter' (by that what we really mean is 'safer' or 'less dangerous') than so-called full-flavor cigarettes?

To answer this question, we must first understand what a light or mild cigarette is. A light cigarette is identical to the full-flavor version with the exception of two things: first, the filter is longer. This gives the smoke more time to cool down before entering the airways and this reduction in temperature gives the illusion of a milder 'taste'. (This is why most smokers can't smoker non-flitered cigarettes: the smoke is too hot for them and they find the 'flavor' too harsh). Second, many manufacturers also put microscopic ventilations in the filter. Again, this allows the smoke to cool down giving the illusion of a milder taste. Also some side-stream smoke escapes through the ventilations, which gives these cigarettes lower tar and nicotine levels when the cigarette is tested by the FTC's smoking machines.

However, we do not smoke like a machine smokes. We cover the ventilations with our lips or fingers. We rip the filter off, or tape it up. We drag deeper, smoke further down the butt or smoke more cigarettes to compensate for the loss of this side-stream smoke.

Because we smoke light and mild cigarettes differently, we actually end up getting very similar amounts of nicotine (and therefore tar, carbon monoxide etc.) from ultra-light cigarettes as we do from full-flavor brands, it's just that the smoke is cooler giving the illusion of mildness.

In Canada this scam has been blown wide open and tobacco companies and now no longer allowed to use the deceitful descriptors 'light' and 'mild'.

As with so many other walks of life, in quitting smoking knowledge is power. To get more knowledge and power, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Stop Smoking online with Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking webcast

We are delighted to announce the launch of our Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking webcast service.

This service has been launched to service the US and Canadian smokers who do not have easy access to an Allen Carr seminar center (currently NY, LA, Dallas, Denver, Toronto and Vancouver).

The webcast is split into six segments and lasts four hours. As with the live seminars, smokers are invited to continue to smoke throughout the program, right up until the ritual final cigarette.
The webcast is delivered by one of the most experienced facilitators in the Allen Carr network, who has personally helped thousands of smokers - including many members of LA and NY's A-list.

We are getting tremendous feedback from webcast users. One user - a doctor who works in the field of addictions said: "So far, so good. I am amazed at how effectively your program has completely removed my desire to smoke. It really is easy..."

For more information about the webcast, please click here. If you are a smoker, or if there is a smoker in your life, we urge you to take a look...

Another bad day for American smokers...

Yesterday the 2008 update to the US Guidelines for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence was announced by Dr. Michael Fiore, Chairman of the review panel.

As expected, the update says that, apart from where contra-indicated: "Clinicicans should encourage (pharmaceutical quitting products) use by ALL patients attempting to quit smoking." But is this good advice or just another opportunity for drug companies to line their pockets still further? For example, Dr. Fiore's own financial ties to companies with pharmaceutical manufacturers are well-known, having been the subject of a front-page story in the Wall St. Journal (Feb 7, 2007).

The types of products that Dr. Fiore's team believe should be used by 'all patients' trying to quit include the nicotine patch and gum (which according to manufacturer Glaxo's own research have six-month success rates of 7%) and Chantix, which (without ongoing counselling and support) has a success rate of around 9% at 12 months and has been the subject of an FDA safety bulletin.

What's more, the recommendations specifically exclude counselling and education - well-known from clinical trials to be the most effective cessation tools - unless they are used in conjunction with medication. (As an aside here, I still can't get my head around calling a nicotine patch 'medication'. How can it be that the nicotine in a cigarette is an addictive poison, but the nicotine from a patch is 'medicine'? Go figure.)

The Allen Carr's Easyway method - a simple, single five-hour seminar - has been shown in independent clinical evaluations published in highly respected medical journals to have a six-month success rate approximately 10 times higher than nicotine replacement products, yet not only is this method not recommended by the panel, it is not even discussed.

It is tragic that smokers are continually told that they need a drug to stop doing a drug, when such wonderful, natural and effective alternatives are available. If you want to stop using nicotine without taking nicotine or other drugs, please visit us at http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Cigarette pack Health Warnings

...I remember back in the UK in the early nineties a brand called "Death" was launched. The logo was a skull and crossbones and the health warning said "Toxic fumes: do not inhale."

Nice to see some truth in advertising!

To get to the truth about quitting, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

When the cure is as bad as the disease...

Today, I was emailed this tragic story by a colleague living in the UK. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351596,00.html

It is the story of Omer Jama, a 39 year-old TV executive who committed suicide while trying to stop smoking using Pfizer's new drug Chantix (a.k.a. Champix).

Around half of the people I see in Allen Carr's Easyway seminars have unsuccessfully used Chantix. Most of them were unable to complete the program of medication because of the side-effects. In fact, back in November 2007 the FDA announced that it was investigating claims brought to the manufacturers attention that the drug caused unpleasant side-effects, including mood swings and 'erratic' behavior in users.

Our thoughts are with Mr. Jama's family at this awful time, and with the tens of thousands of smokers who are prescribed this drug on a weekly basis.

For a simple, drug-free quit smoking method, please visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

NYC nicotine patches - one over each eye so you can't see the results!

I subscribe to the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene newsletter and today I received an email from them advising me of the launch of their latest quit smoking campaign.

In another repeat of the program first introduced in 2003, until May 1st 2008 the nicotine patch and gum will be available free of charge to an unspecified number of eligible NYC smokers wanting to quit. Whilst I am very happy to see the city taking quitting so seriously, I again question the wisdom of using nicotine replacement therapy which, according to industry reports, has six-month quit rates of just 7%.

To compare these success rates to Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking webcasts and seminars, please click here and for a comprehensive review of all of the major quit smoking methods, please click here

Tobacco and justice...

You may have read John Grisham's latest book The Appeal. In it the evil CEO of a chemical company buys a seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court so that he can get an expensive verdict overturned.

They say that truth is stranger than fiction: in December 2006 when the US Supreme Court declined to review the dismissal of a $10.1bn award against Philip Morris for "enticing smokers to buy "light" cigarettes on a fraudulent promise that they were lower in tar and nicotine" the tobacco industry breathed a huge sigh of relief.

The State Supreme Court judge that cast the deciding vote? Step forward Judge Lloyd Karmeier, who received millions of dollars in campaign support from the tobacco industry, in particular - you guessed it - Philip Morris Inc.

To read Dorothy Samuels' brilliant expose of judicial corruption in the NY Times, go here...http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/opinion/13talkingpoints.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The truth about Nicotine Replacement Therapy

For years Allen Carr tried to convince the UK tobacco control establishment to look at the incredible success rates he was achieving with his simple, fast, drug-free approach, with a view to making it freely available to all smokers wanting to quit.

Allen said to me that he felt like he had a cure for cancer, but nobody in authority wanted to know. According to Allen, the tobacco control bureaucracy was no different than any other inept government body - slow-moving, bureaucratic and biased. His frustration was partially born out of the unwavering support by the establishment towards Nicotine Reaplcement Therapy which has comparitively low success rates. He felt that this support was based on the funding provided by the drug companies that manufacture these products.

Allen wrote about this at length in his final book, Scandal, which can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.allencarr.com/

The Wall St. Journal's Kevin Helliker wrote a fascinating article about the influence of drug companies in the formation of public health policy in this field. To read more go to http://www.aerzteinitiative.at/PharmaTies07.htm

This is your brain on Chantix

Derek DeKoff, a journalist writing for New York magazine had this to say about his experience to try to quit smoking using Chantix (Champix). Suicidal thoughts, hallucinations and blackouts - not everyone's idea of fun.

http://nymag.com/news/features/43892/

For a more effective, drug-free approach to quitting smoking, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

The Best Time to Quit Smoking

The one word answer: tomorrow!


But isn't that what you said yesterday? And the day before?

The reason that 'tomorrow' is the smoker's favorite answer is because it means we don't have to do it today. We know we should quit smoking in the long-term, but that's the long-term and we'll think about that later. For now, we want to smoke, and the immediate fear of feeling deprived trumps the longer-term fear of being killed by smoking.

We 'want' to smoke because, even though we know it kills one out of every two smokers, we think it helps us relax or cope with stress or that it keeps us thin. On top of these beliefs that smoking is somehow pleasurable or beneficial, we believe that quitting smoking is extremely difficult and unpleasant. Nicotine withdrawal is said to be brutal; "harder to quit than heroin" we're told. We believe that even if we make it, we will never be truly happy as non-smokers and that we will go through the rest of lives feeling deprived.


With beliefs like this is it surprising that the best day to quit is always 'tomorrow'?


The key to finding it easy to stop smoking is to change the way you see smoking and quitting. Allen Carr's method teaches smokers to shift their prespective. As soon as I began to see the cigarette not as the solution, but as the problem; when I realized that there was nothing to 'give up'; when I understood that as a smoker I experienced nicotine withdrawal for hours at a time when I was asleep and that it was so mild that it didn't even wake me up; when I realized that it was smokers, not non-smokers, who were deprived - of their health, their money, their energy, their self-respect and their freedom - then I realized it could be easy to quit and do you know what?


It was.


For more information on how to build a winning mindset when it comes to quitting smoking, visit us at http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/

A thought for the day...

There are approximately 45m smokers in the US and Canada. There are an estimated 60m ex-smokers. This means that there are more people who have quit smoking than who smoke. What is so special about these people? Absolutely nothing. Like you, many of them thought they would never be able to quit, but they did it, and so can you.

To find out how you can join the 60m visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com

Happy Valentine's Day

Another great reason to quit: the chances of getting lucky on Valentine's Day are better if you don't smell like an ashtray!

Hope you all have a great and fun day...

So, what's it really like to be a non-smoker?

When I was a smoker I could never visualize myself as a happy non-smoker. I was convinced that I would go through the rest of my life craving the cigarette I could never smoke and that my life without my 'little friend' would be one of misery, deprivation and irritability.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. When I quit smoking I did not lose a friend, I killed an enemy. As a non-smoker I feel happier, much healthier and free. My energy levels, self-confidence and self-esteem have gone through the roof. The cold hands, the lethargy, the depression and the panic attacks have disappeared.


I still cry when my team loses and I still celebrate when they win. I still love my family, and the fact that I can now spend time with them without trying to create an excuse to leave them to go for a smoke. I still can't stand artichokes or hip-hop. I still worry that I'm going bald...I just don't have to smoke any more, that's all.

Smoking and weight

I am writing this blog entry in response to a post on the excellent Basil and Spice blog (http://www.basilandspice.com/) which talked about weight gain and quitting smoking.

The issue of smoking and weight control is not as simple as you might think. There are two myths we need to deal with here: first, the idea that smoking helps control weight, either as an appetite supressant or as an agent to boost the metabolism and second, that quitting smoking leads to weight gain.

Many smokers claim that the cigarette works as an appetite supressant but this is really a subtle illusion. Physical withdrawal from nicotine, which starts as soon as the smoker puts out a cigarette, feels very similar to hunger - a slight emptiness in the pit of your stomach. So when the smoker lights up and the 'hunger pang' disappears the smoker gives the cigarette the credit for supressing their appetite when in fact all it has done is to remove a nicotine pang which feels similar to a hunger pang. Think about it; do you think that non-smokers get 'hungry' twenty times a day? Of course not. So why would smokers?

At a physiological level what is happening is this: when a smoker lights up, the poisons contained in tobacco smoke make the body feel that it's under attack. This prompts the adrenal gland to release adrenaline - the fight or flight chemical which in turn prompts the release of stored glucose into the blood (because your body thinks it will need the extra energy to run or to fight). As the blood sugar increases, the smoker's body is tricked into thinking it has eaten because the symptom of hunger (the hunger pang which is actually a nicotine pang) has been removed.

However, this is very short-lived. After a few minutes the body realizes that it is not really under attack and the pancreas produces insulin to mop up the excess blood sugar. This leaves many smokers feeling tired and lethargic. In fact this explains the so-called 'wired and tired' phenomenon experienced by many smokers. The adrenalin released when your body thinks it is being attacked makes you feel jumpy and edgy but the oxygen deprivation and plummeting blood sugar caused by smoking makes you feel lethargic.

When the smoker puts out the cigarette, they immediately go into physical withdrawal again, and within 30-45 minutes they usually begin to feel 'hungry' again, and so the cycle keeps repeating.

So that explains the illusion of the cigarette as an appetite supressant, but what about the metabolism? It is true that smoking elevates the metabolism, but it does it only by a small amount and in the most dangerous way imaginable - by clogging up your blood and creating a thick layer of plaque around the lining of your veins, arteries and capillaries. The impact of this is to increase the smoker's blood pressure and heart rate, which is basically a recipe for a heart attack.

The impact of this higher metabolic rate has been calculated to be around 100 calories a day - the equivalent of a slice of bread. So if you want to retain the same body weight you were as a smoker you will need to reduce your calorific intake by around 100 calories.

Let's face it, it's not as if smokers have this fabulous fat-burning capacity just because they smoke. If that were true, you would never see an overweight smoker, and there are plenty of those around - I was one for years, until I quit and was able to take control of my eating, drinking and exercise, which leads me to my next point - that quitting smoking leads to weight gain.

When I was a smoker I was approximately 60lbs overweight (so much for smoking keeping us thin). The reasons for this were obvious: I couldn't taste food very well and found myself eating foods high in sugar, salt and fat (basically junk food). I also drank too much. I had two young girls and I would never smoke in front of them so I used to go to the village pub every night and drink 5 or 6 beers, just so I could smoke. And, as you can imagine smoking 60 a day, exercise wasn't particularly high on my agenda. When I quit smoking I started exercising because for the first time in my adult life I had energy. I stopped drinking vast quantities of beer (which saved me nearly 900 calories a day) and started eating good food. I lost 35lbs in the first four months after quitting. The weight fell off me.

When you hear stories of people putting large amounts of weight on when they quit smoking they are invariably substituting food for cigarettes. They feel that by quitting smoking they are depriving themselves of a pleasure or crutch. This sense of deprivation leads to feeling a void, and many people try to fill this void with food. The truth is that smoking was the problem here. Cigarettes were the void. By becoming a non-smoker you fill the void and are complete.

Think about it: the metrics of weight control do not change when you become a non-smoker. The metrics of weight control are identical for smokers and non-smokers. Weight depends on what you eat, how much of it, your exercise regime and your genes.

Basically, if you consume more calories than you expend, you'll put weight on. It is said by nutritionists that to put on 1lb of weight, you need to consume approximately 4,000 calories more than you expend.

Let's say that you are worried about putting, say, 20lbs on over a couple of months. This would amount to an 80,000 calorie 'surplus' or 1,333 calories a day. You tell me: would it be possible to consume 1,333 calories a day more than you are currently consuming, every single day for 60 days without knowing about it? No way. You would have to be aware of this increase in consumption. Like I said, people who put large amounts of weight on when they quit are inavariably using willpower. They still want to smoke, but they won't allow themselves to do so. This makes them feel deprived and miserable and they try to console themselves by eating a box of chocolates.

This is why it is so important to see quitting not as a loss, but as a gain. If you see it as a loss, you will want to substitute - probably with food. However if you see quitting as a gain, that you are taking your life back and that this is a wonderful thing, then there is no sense of a void and no temptation to substitute.

It is true that smokers on average tend to weigh around 500g less than non-smokers, but this in itself is not a meaningful statistic because when you look at seriously underweight people (many of whom suffer from eating and/or anxiety disorders) we see that most of them smoke. When we factor this into the situation we find that 'normal' smokers and 'normal' non-smokers weigh the same.

Given that obesity is such a problem these days, surely if nicotine worked to control weight doctors would recommend the patch or nicotine gum for weight loss?

Smoking doesn't make you thin, and following Allen Carr's principles, quitting doesn't make you fat.

Taking inspiration from a Giant shock

Many congratulations to the NY Giants on their wonderful Superbowl win yesterday. It shows what is possible with preparation, belief and a good plan, even when the odds are stacked against you.

So many smokers are intimidated by the idea of quitting, and feel that the odds are stacked against them, but the reality is that thousands of people do so successfully every day. There are an estimated 50m smokers in North America today, but an estimated 65m ex-smokers. What is so special about these people? Absolutely nothing. They did it, and so can you.

So why not take a lesson out of the Giant's playbook? You won't win a ring, but you might add a few years to your life....

Eight questions every smoker should ask themselves

When I was a smoker I tried not to think about smoking because when I did, I ended up feeling stupid and frightened. When I eventually plucked up the courage to confront my smoking, here are some of the questions I began to ask myself as a smoker and they put me on the road to freedom.


1. When did you decide to become a smoker for life? When you lit those first few experimental cigarettes as a child or young adult, were you really deciding to be a smoker for life? Did you really think that those first cigarettes would put you in this situation today?

2. If smoking is so great, why does everyone want to quit? Over 70% of adult smokers want to quit. If smokers genuinely enjoyed smoking, they wouldn't want to quit.

3. Have you ever met a smoker who would encourage their kids to start smoking? Why are smokers always so happy when their kids grow up to be non-smokers? Is it because we don't want them to make the same mistake as we did? If smokers enjoyed smoking, they wouldn't perceive smoking as a mistake -they would want to share this pleasure with their children and the fact that they don't raises a big red flag for me: Why not?

4. If smoking relieves stress, why aren't smokers less stressed than non-smokers? Research shows that smokers are far more stressed than non-smokers. If smoking genuinely relieved stress, then the opposite would be true. Smokers are also much more likely than non-smokers to suffer from anxiety disorders and depression.

5. If physical withdrawal from nicotine is so bad, then why can chain-smokers sleep through the night? Most smokers think they only go into withdrawal when they try to stop smoking but the reality is that withdrawal starts the second a smoker puts out a cigarette. If withdrawal is so bad, then why can smokers sleep through every night when they go to bed? Do you think a heroin addict could sleep through heroin withdrawal?

6. What is the true cost of smoking? We think in terms of the cost of smoking as being the cost of smokes (which is bad enough these days), but this isn't really the case. If each cigarette takes ten minutes out of our day, then a pack-a-day smoker spends 200 minutes a day smoking - or three hours and twenty minutes. Over a year, this amounts to over 1200 hours or 152 working days spent smoking. At $20 per hour, this amounts to $24,320 in time lost due to smoking. This is time you could have spent working, or relaxing, or with your family, or studying.

Then there is the biggest cost of all - losing between 8-24 years of your one and only life. And what of those who are left behind. What is the cost they pay?

7. Why doesn't it take you willpower not to take cyanide? Even if you were totally immune to the effects of cyanide, would you take it? Of course not. It's not knowing that cyanide is bad for you that makes it easy to turn down, it's knowing that there is no upside to taking it. Same with smoking. It isn't knowing that smoking is bad for you that makes it easy to quit, it's knowing that there are no benefits to smoking.


8. If smoking helps to control weight, why do we see so many overweight smokers? I told myself that I smoked to keep thin, ignoring the inconvenient fact that as a smoker I was 60lbs overweight. When I quit smoking I started exercising, eating properly and cut back dramatically on my drinking (most of which was consumed so that I could be somewhere I could smoke). The weight fell off me.

Why do smokers believe that quitting is hard?

Crossing a road is pretty easy, but only if you do it right. If you try to cross a busy highway, in fog, at night, wearing dark clothes, blindfolded, drunk and walking on your hands, you can make something that is basically pretty easy into something extremely difficult. And so it is with quitting smoking.

Smokers believe that quitting is hard for a couple of reasons: firstly, everyone tells them it is. Smokers are bombarded with messages from other smokers, drug companies and quit smoking ‘experts’ (many of whom have never smoked a cigarette in their lives) that smoking is ‘harder to quit than heroin’. I’ve never been a heroin addict, but I’m guessing that quitting the stuff is no picnic. Who could think of a worse mindset with which to approach a problem?

Secondly, throughout their smoking lives smokers have been told that smoking helps them relax, cope with stress, concentrate, keep them thin and so on. Any smoker who believes these things will retain a desire to smoke in those situations, and will need to use willpower to try to overcome that desire. This creates a conflict; part of them wants to quit, but part still wants to smoke and it is this conflict – not physical withdrawal from nicotine – that creates the symptoms of fear, panic, anxiety and irritability that so many smokers associate with quitting.

Thirdly, smokers are seriously misinformed about nicotine – in particular about how addictive it is and bad withdrawal is.

But despite these horror stories, every so often you come across one of those people that say: “Nah. Quitting smoking was easy.” I am one of those people and I want to share my experience with you.

I started smoking as an eleven year-old and for the next twenty-nine years never went a day without smoking. By the time I quit I was smoking 40-60 cigarettes a day. I tried to quit smoking many times over many years. I tried the patch, the gum, hypnosis, acupuncture, laser therapy, cold turkey, herbal treatments, homeopathic remedies – you name it, I tried it. I never made it to a single day smoke-free using these methods for the reasons I have already explained above: My expectation was that quitting would be difficult and unpleasant, that I would feel deprived of my pleasure or crutch, and that physical withdrawal was brutal.

As soon as I was able to change these beliefs, it was ridiculously easy to quit.

First, I decided to stop listening to people who found it difficult to quit and start listening to people who had found it easy. There are a surprisingly large number of such people.

Second, I learned how to challenge the beliefs that created the desire to smoke. If smoking relieved stress then why was I so stressed? If the cigarette was an appetite suppressant then why was I 60 lbs overweight as a smoker? If the cigarette aided concentration why weren’t smokers smarter than non-smokers? If the cigarette aids relaxation why aren’t chain smokers the most relaxed people on the planet? By challenging these beliefs I was able to realize that actually there was nothing to give up, apart from illusions I had acquired as a smoker – most of them as a very young smoker.

Third, I learned the facts about nicotine. It’s a powerful drug, but only in the sense that it hooks you very quickly. Believe it or not, there is an upside to the speed with which nicotine works – it gets out of your body very quickly too. Most smokers believe that they only go into physical withdrawal from nicotine when they try to stop smoking, but this is not true. The process of withdrawal begins as soon as a smoker puts out a cigarette. The reality is that just 20 minutes after putting out a cigarette the body is 50% nicotine free. After six hours of not smoking, the body is 97% nicotine free. Smokers sleep through physical withdrawal from nicotine every single night when they go to sleep, yet it is so mild that it doesn’t even wake them up. If withdrawal didn’t bother you as a smoker, why would it bother you as a non-smoker?

Equipped with this new mindset (courtesy of Allen Carr’s Easyway seminar): that quitting could be easy, that there was nothing to give up but illusions and that physical withdrawal was straightforward (having slept through it every night as a smoker), the confidence levels with which I approached my final quit were much higher than in the past. There was none of the fear and doubt that had plagued my earlier attempts to quit.

After smoking heavily for 29 years, I just walked away from the whole thing. That was nine years ago. I have never once missed smoking or had the slightest desire to light up. In fact, the sense of empowerment, freedom and accomplishment was amazing.

Knowledge is power and when you have the power instead of the cigarette, quitting is easy.

Allen Carr

Allen Carr, founder of the Easyway to Stop Smoking method, was born in 1934 in London, England.

Like many men of his generation, he started smoking as a young man doing his National Service. In all he smoked for 33 years and in the latter years he smoked between 60 and 100 cigarettes a day.

In July 1983 after countless miserable attempts to quit smoking, he discovered what every smoker on the planet is looking for: an easy way to stop smoking. In October 1983 he resigned from his position as Chief Financial Officer of a major toy company to work full-time with smokers.

He ran his first quit smoking seminars from the front room of his house in Raynes Park, near Wimbledon, just outside London. Word of the success of his method spread quickly and before long, Carr was asked to put the seminar into book form. That book - The Easy Way to Stop Smoking - first published in 1985, has now sold over 10,000,000 copies and has been a #1 bestseller in nine different countries. In 2001 it was voted by customers of Amazon in the UK as one of the fifty most influential books of the 20th century.

During that time, his seminar business continued to thrive and today there are 115 Easyway centres in 40 countries. In a clinical evaluation published in the November 2006 issue of the medical journal Addictive Behaviours, Easyway seminars were calculated to have a 12-month success rate of 53.3%. This is especially impressive given the short duration (the seminar takes just six hours including time for five smoke breaks, compared to the 11-12 weeks for most therapies) of the treatment. To put this into context, the 12-month success rate for Nicotine Replacement Therapy is around 10%. Hypnosis, acupuncture and laser therapy show no improvement over cold turkey (around 5%).

After failing to battle my own nicotine addiction using willpower, patches, gum, pills, hypnosis, aupuncture and laser therapy, I was shocked and thrilled to quit smoking very easily at an Allen Carr seminar in London in 2001. Because I had been a smoker my whole adult life, I had never really thought much about how the cigarette had come to control my life. From the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep, my life was one continuous attempt to try to create an excuse to go and smoke a cigarette. It dictated what I did, where I went, who I saw, who I avoided seeing, where I ate, where I drank, where I worked, where I went on vacation.

As a non-smoker for the first time I was able to go places, see people and do things that as a smoker, I just couldn't. The sense of freedom was fantastic, as was the boost of energy I felt after years of lethargy as a smoker. My self-esteem and self-confidence came flooding back and I even lost weight. I felt that Allen's Easyway method had given me my life back and this allowed me, for the first time, to begin to become the person, the father and husband I had always wanted to be. Tremendously grateful, I got back in touch with Easyway and pestered them into training me to conduct Easyway seminars.

It was a thrill to be selected to train as an Allen Carr facilitator but just as big a thrill was getting to know Allen himself. I admired Allen because of what he had done for me and my family (my wife quit by reading the book and I quit at a seminar) and was very happy once I met him to find that he was an open, honest, generous man, completely untouched by his fame and success. Passionate about the smoking issue and tremendously knowledgeable, Allen was a formidable and tireless campaigner for helping smokers. He was a 'man on a mission' personified.

Over the years, Carr became increasingly frustrated by what he perceived as the tobacco control establishment's lack of support for his programme. He was concerned with helping smokers, not with the politics and bureaucracy of the establishment, most of whom, Carr noted, had never smoked or had ever helped a single smoker to quit. As the British government threw more and more money at relatively ineffective programmes, while going out of their way to ignore Easyway, Carr's frustration grew.

In his final book, Scandal, he spoke eloquently of this situation. In it he described the many times he had tried to approach the establishment, only to be rebuffed. Carr felt that drugs companies, whose agenda he believed was to sell more patches and pills, influenced too much of the tobacco control agenda. In particular he fell out with Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), whom he criticised for championing drug company products rather than effective treatments.

In essence, he felt that the establishment was going about the whole smoking problem the wrong way. Rather than tell people that quitting is difficult and that physical withdrawal is brutal, Carr advocated a simple, drug-free, common sense approach which was demonstrably more effective and cheaper to implement. The establishment never forgave him. Fortuntely the millions of people who became happy non-smokers by using his unique approach did.

In July 2006 Allen was diagnosed with squamous cell lung cancer. Carr was typically upbeat. Lung cancer ran in his family, he said. "If I hadn't quit smoking, I'd have been dead twenty years ago." And look at what he achieved in that twenty years: It is estimated that his books and seminars helped 10m smokers quit. Given that smoking is said to kill 1 in 2 smokers, by any calculation Carr's contribution to society has been immense.

It is not possible to tell whether his cancer was caused by his own heavy smoking prior to 1983 or by the years spent in smokey seminar rooms working to help others. Either way, Carr was philosophical. "Since I smoked my final cigarette 23 years ago, I've been the happiest man in the world" he said.

Allen Carr died in November 2006, surrounded by his loving family. In death he perhaps received the public recognition that he had not enjoyed during his life. That his obituary appeared in the Times, the Economist, Forbes, the British Medical Journal and many other fine publications was a measure of the degree of public acceptance. The thousands of letters and emails received at Easyway offices around the world and at the Easyway website (http://www.allencarr.com/) are a testament to the affection, respect and gratitude of the many people he helped.

Allen Carr was a great man. He was a wonderful friend, colleague and mentor. It was a privilege to have known him and his memory serves to inspire all Easyway facilitators in their daily work with smokers.

Introduction

Welcome to The Easyway to Stop Smoking blog.

My name is Damian O'Hara and I head up Allen Carr's Easyway organisation in the US and Canada. I am a former smoker who, after countless miserable attempts to quit using just about every method under the sun, eventually did so easily and enjoyably at an Allen Carr's Easyway seminar in 2001. Today I have the privilege of helping other smokers achieve this wonderful change in their lives.

I decided to write this blog for a couple of reasons: firstly, there is a real lack of good quality information for smokers wanting to quit. Most of the information out there is just a re-hash of the cliches that the health establishment keep trotting out - that quitting is difficult (harder to quit than heroin, they keep telling us), that withdrawal from nicotine is brutal and that life as a non-smoker will never be as enjoyable. This is absolute garbage and I wanted to begin to put another, more productive view forward.

Secondly, most of the information comes from people within the medical community who themselves have never smoked. Whilst I have the greatest respect for doctors, I think it's easier to learn from someone who has been there than from someone who hasn't.

Thirdly, most of the information focuses on how bad smoking is for you, but it doesn't tell you how to quit. This is worse than useless. Smokers know that smoking is bad for them, but that's not why they smoke. The challenge is not to understand why we shouldn't smoke (we've known that for years and if that knowledge was enough to cure us, we would already be non-smokers); it's to understand why we do smoke and to deal with those reasons.

Fourthly, seeing as tobacco control is now fairly high up on the political radar these days, I wanted a forum within which we could comment on matters regarding tobacco control, tobacco companies, government and smokers.

Finally, I want people to know that there is a viable alternative to white-knuckling your way through yet another miserable quit. That there is a simple, cheap, drug-free way to stop smoking that has been around for 25 years and has helped millions of smokers just like you to quit easily.

Our objective is to inform, inspire, educate and entertain. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we enjoy writing it...