Wrong approach to smokers
Tuesday, 25. July 2006, 10:04:15
Everybody knows "smoking is bad". Chemical structure of tar and other chemical substances in the smoke can cause cancer, particularly, lung cancer.
Smoking harms... blah blah blah...
I keep seeing people telling "how bad smoking is". But this is, in my personal opinion, something utterly wrong - you cannot convince a dependant with a bag of words. Instead of blaming cigarette, health organizations/doctors/etc. should try to minimize the damage and help smoker during critical period of giving up cigarette. To give up smoking, dependant needs at least 3 months. What I say is, give nicotine in another form, decrease every day, and make that period, say, 6 months. With no or less pain throughout 6 months fed with weakened nicotine, I bet people will not require smoking. If...
If smoking habit is a result of nicotine dependency, which is questionable, I think, then smokers can give up smoking with little help. If, however, smoking is not just about nicotine, then we need a workaround. Smoking could feel nice, but it also feels painful and smells bad (even smokers hate it). Never mind how cigarette stains teeth, which also disturbs smokers (don't you forget how much dental surgery costs). But as I said, people do smoke because they enjoy. There are just a couple of questions:
I think those anatomy classes, cadaver lungs, etc. is nothing but too far from helping smokers.
"If you smoke, you die"
You gotta be kidding! I remember answer from one of my elder friends;
"My grandfather died 80 years old, in natural way, he was smoking slightly more than 1 pack everyday. Most of his non-smoker friends have died years ago from various reasons, like car crash, drawning, heart disease and cancer."
Everybody's gonna die! This lie just does not work!
Imagining forensics on piece of software
I was thinking how stupid it could be to place screenshots/photos of a crashed application or a memory dump to a secretary in the office and tell her not to visit stupid web sites that potentially has spyware which causes this sort of desease... Well, it's nothing that causes dependency, but on the other hand, my approach could be pointless... "Ok, we know, badware is bad". It's obviously disturbing to see a crashed computer (in particular, Windows, or even more particularly, Internet Explorer
). "If you keep visiting those sites, your computer will crash like this (bang!)".
Smoking harms... blah blah blah...
I keep seeing people telling "how bad smoking is". But this is, in my personal opinion, something utterly wrong - you cannot convince a dependant with a bag of words. Instead of blaming cigarette, health organizations/doctors/etc. should try to minimize the damage and help smoker during critical period of giving up cigarette. To give up smoking, dependant needs at least 3 months. What I say is, give nicotine in another form, decrease every day, and make that period, say, 6 months. With no or less pain throughout 6 months fed with weakened nicotine, I bet people will not require smoking. If...
If smoking habit is a result of nicotine dependency, which is questionable, I think, then smokers can give up smoking with little help. If, however, smoking is not just about nicotine, then we need a workaround. Smoking could feel nice, but it also feels painful and smells bad (even smokers hate it). Never mind how cigarette stains teeth, which also disturbs smokers (don't you forget how much dental surgery costs). But as I said, people do smoke because they enjoy. There are just a couple of questions:
- What exactly do they enjoy?
- Is there an alternative and smoother way to give up smoking, instead of giving up immediately?
- Instead of showing smokers disgusting lung, vein and heart photos, teaching them anatomy (If I smoke, my sigmoid colon gets darker and my ulnar nerve squeezes. Never mind my spinal cord breaks...) can we find a proper way to guide them to give it up?
- Did we make those health organizations and campaigns free?
- How can we stop next generations becoming a dependant?
I think those anatomy classes, cadaver lungs, etc. is nothing but too far from helping smokers.
"If you smoke, you die"
You gotta be kidding! I remember answer from one of my elder friends;
"My grandfather died 80 years old, in natural way, he was smoking slightly more than 1 pack everyday. Most of his non-smoker friends have died years ago from various reasons, like car crash, drawning, heart disease and cancer."
Everybody's gonna die! This lie just does not work!
Imagining forensics on piece of software
I was thinking how stupid it could be to place screenshots/photos of a crashed application or a memory dump to a secretary in the office and tell her not to visit stupid web sites that potentially has spyware which causes this sort of desease... Well, it's nothing that causes dependency, but on the other hand, my approach could be pointless... "Ok, we know, badware is bad". It's obviously disturbing to see a crashed computer (in particular, Windows, or even more particularly, Internet Explorer
). "If you keep visiting those sites, your computer will crash like this (bang!)". 
WIDGETIZE
Höllrigl Georg # 25. July 2006, 10:14
Dan Alexandru # 25. July 2006, 11:32
Nicotine is a drug. It creates dependence and alters behaviour.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060724.waddictlist0724/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home
OK, maybe that one was too much, we shouldn't treat tobacco smokers as criminals. Except those that cause health problems for second-hand smokers. And we're back to the drug problem.
Nobody suggests giving up immediately, on the contrary. There are plenty of options. Then again, there are anecdotal cases of strong-willed people who just said "no" one day. (this, to balance the smokers who live to be 90 yo, and who would have lived longer/better otherwise)
I imagine a device that lets them play forward their life, complete with real suffering (their and of people around them).
For now, one can only do so much to sensitize them.
http://my.opera.com/community/blogs/index.dml?search=smoking
Dan Alexandru # 25. July 2006, 11:39
BTW: What did you mean with: "If you smoke, you die" -- This lie just does not work!
Smoking kills. Passive smoking kills. A good ad, I think:
Ismail # 26. July 2006, 12:21
Cigaratte does not kill. Cigaratte helps those diseases to occur/grow.
Nonetheless, the point is; "if you smoke, you die" sort of cliche stuff just don't work on smokers - it's far from beating the desire/pleasure of smoking.
I do believe smokers do not like this sort of approach because they see lots of people die from different reasons - whether they smoke or not - and they just think; "everybody's gonna die, so let's die from a pleasure". Of course, a smoker's death - even the beginning of his descent - can be pretty painful. For example, it may lead vein congestion, which causes him/her to be trimmed much like a plant! This could be the worst thing - worse than death! Losing an organ someone had for, say, 40 years, and then trying to spend rest of the days without it is devastating, unbearable loss.
Frankly (well, I am not a scientist but...), I think "sometimes" (not everytime) passive smoking is just an exaggeration, but it certainly works on preventing someone to smoke
As far as I know, we don't know exact reasons that ignites first smoking desire. But we all know some common factors, like lack of education, short/limited vision of life, poorness/low welfare and finding smoking as a solution to problems one suffers in his/her life.
I, personally, do not believe any of those anatomy teachings (lung photos, vein congestion, trimmed legs, etc) would work on people who starts smoking from above reasons. We cannot expect people to understand the situation. My grandfather had vein congestion in his brain, now he can't speak properly - although veins are now open, its damage is unrecoverable -, but he still smokes. Treating smokers, I think, should not contain anatomy classes, but simpler facts and helpful stuff. What we do now is showing them black cadaver lung photos and "if you smoke, your lung will be like this. so, don't smoke". This is not helping, because we don't help them - we tell them to give up smoking. Helping is different; it's treatment. After or during treatment, doctors/people can still show black lungs of cadaver if they still want to
Ismail # 26. July 2006, 12:24
Giving up gradually, with help of special pills or various other solutions works perfectly. Giving up gradually by decreasing number of cigarettes just DO NOT WORK!