Tag Archives: quit
Could D.A.R.E. Quit Lying About Marijuana?
The infamous school drug-education program known as D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) may be removing marijuana from its curriculum. D.A.R.E. officer Mike Meyer of Kennewick, Washington explains that program’s materials for December make no mention of the substance, though he says he does not know why.
If true, this is a welcome step, although eliminating D.A.R.E. altogether would be preferable. All credible studies of the program, including a report from the Government Accountability Office, have failed to find any decrease in drug use connected with participation in D.A.R.E. Officials with the organization have apparently been slow in admitting this, however. In a libel suit brought by D.A.R.E. against Rolling Stone magazine, Federal Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that allegations printed in the magazine, including that D.A.R.E. had actually tried to suppress scientific research critical of the program, were “substantially true.” D.A.R.E. appealed the decision, but the Ninth Circuit Court upheld the ruling.
Although D.A.R.E. officials admitted their failure in 2001 and proposed a new, less hysterical curriculum, research since then has still failed to demonstrate any success. The “new” curriculum, as it is described on the website, does not seem to involve any increased commitment to facts, but rather now involves “role-playing sessions” and “discussion groups.” The summary of the new program, revealingly, makes insinuations that drug use is connected to terrorism, and in place of facts, explains that officers will be using “stunning brain imagery” as “tangible proof of how substances diminish mental activity, emotions, coordination and movement.”
Although they have possibly abandoned the anti-marijuana crusade in their school curriculum, D.A.R.E. still disseminates dishonest information on their website. An ironically named “fact sheet” repeats claims that marijuana “has a high potential for abuse,” and although it is short on the details or prevalence of this abuse, it does claim that marijuana can weaken the immune system and cause insanity and lung disease. The “fact sheet” categorically denies the medical benefits of marijuana, suggesting that it causes only “inebriation.” At the same time, it admits that THC, which the page describes as “the psychoactive [in other words mind-altering or “inebriating”] ingredient in marijuana,” has medical benefits. It implicitly denies the countless cases of experiences of medical marijuana patients who tried conventional treatments without success, claiming simply that “existing legal drugs provide superior treatment for serious medical conditions,” and “the FDA has approved safe and effective medication for the treatment of glaucoma, nausea, wasting syndrome, cancer, and multiple sclerosis.” The page even quotes the Institute of Medicine study, “Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base,” the very same study which confirms the medical usefulness of marijuana and refutes claims that it poses a major proven risk of addiction or lung cancer, or that it causes brain damage, amotivational syndrome, suppression of the immune system, use of other illicit drugs, or premature death from any cause. The study further points out the shortcomings of existing legal medications for the relevant medical conditions, including the slow and unreliable action of synthetic THC pills.
According to Mike Riggs at Reason, D.A.R.E. headquarters has neither confirmed nor denied any shift in policy.
Women Who Quit Smoking May Gain Up to 10 Years of Life: Study
FRIDAY Oct. 26, 2012 — Smoking takes at least 10 years off women’s lives but they can significantly reduce that risk if they quit smoking early enough, a new study suggests.
Researchers looked at more than 1 million women in the United Kingdom who were recruited when they were aged 50 to 65 and followed for 12 years. Initially, 20 percent of the women were smokers, 28 percent ex-smokers, and 52 percent had never smoked.
Women who still smoked three years into the study were nearly three times more likely to die in the following nine years than nonsmokers. This threefold increased risk of death means that two-thirds of all deaths of female smokers in their 50s, 60s and 70s are caused by smoking, the researchers said.
The death risk among smokers increased sharply with the amount smoked, but even those who were light smokers (1 to 9 cigarettes a day) at the start of the study were twice as likely to die as nonsmokers, according to the report published online Oct. 27 in The Lancet.
The investigators also found that women who had stopped smoking before the age of 40 avoided more than 90 percent of the increased risk of dying associated with continuing to smoke, while those who quit before 30 avoided more than 97 percent of that increased risk.
“If women smoke like men, they die like men — but, whether they are men or women, smokers who stop before reaching middle age will on average gain about an extra 10 years of life,” study co-author Sir Richard Peto, of the University of Oxford in England, said in a journal news release.
The authors of a commentary accompanying the study agreed that the findings are “simple and unequivocal.”
“That we had to wait until the 21st century to observe the full consequences in women of a habit that was already widespread in the mid-20th century, when tobacco smoking pervaded much of the developed world, might seem paradoxical,” wrote Rachel Huxley, of the University of Minnesota, and her co-author.
“But this is because, in most of Europe and the U.S.A., the popularity of smoking among young women reached its peak in the 1960s, decades later than for men,” the editorialists explained. “Hence, previous studies have underestimated the full eventual impact of smoking on mortality in women, simply because of the lengthy time lag between smoking uptake by young women and disease onset in middle and old age.”
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about women and smoking.
Posted: October 2012
Rising Cigarette Prices May Be Incentive to Quit
TUESDAY July 31, 2012 — The recent increase in the Illinois cigarette tax is an example of how making smoking more expensive can convince some people it’s time to quit.
For example, being a smoker in Chicago can easily cost $ 300 a month, which is more than twice as expensive as a monthly prescription of medications to help a person quit smoking.
But even when the cost of smoking convinces a person to quit, it can be hard to kick the habit, said Dr. Phillip McAndrew, an internal medicine physician and occupational health expert at Loyola University Health System.
“Nicotine really is that addictive. It’s a hard battle, but every one that we win, including increasing the cost of cigarettes through taxes, brings individual smokers to the tipping point where the pain of smoking overcomes the joys of nicotine and they quit,” McAndrew noted. “The tipping point could be a life-altering health experience, but often it’s the impact on the pocketbook that makes people really consider quitting,” he explained in a Loyola news release.
“To quit you need the time and teamwork approach. Don’t expect to do it overnight and you need a team of support around you to cheer you on. That team captain should be your physician,” McAndrew said.
“Nicotine is too strong an opponent for someone to go it alone. You need that team to help keep you on track when everything inside of you wants to go back,” he advised.
McAndrew offered the following tips to help people quit smoking:
- Assemble a support team that includes your family, doctor, friends and co-workers.
- Set a specific date to quit. Make it two to four weeks away so that you have time to prepare. When quit day arrives, make sure to celebrate it.
- Make preparations to limit the temptation of nicotine while you try to quit. Talk to your doctor about medications and other methods to help you; buy gum, carrot sticks or other snacks to keep your mouth busy; get rid of all cigarettes, matches, lighters and ashtrays from your home, office, car and other locations where you smoke; clean your clothes, home and car so they don’t smell like smoke; program your phone with resources such as tobacco “quit lines.”
- Find ways to cope with stress and boredom, which can trigger a return to smoking.
- Keep doing enjoyable things you used to connect with smoking, such as taking a break or going out with friends. That will help you break the mental link between these pleasant activities and smoking.
More information
The American Cancer Society offers a guide to quitting smoking.
Posted: July 2012
Want to quit smoking? Try acupuncture or hypnosis
A man holds a cigarette in Tokyo August 3, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer
(Reuters) – Acupuncture and hypnosis have been promoted as drug-free ways to help smokers kick the habit, and there is some evidence that they work, according to a research review that looked at 14 international studies.
Researchers, whose findings appeared in the American Journal of Medicine, said that there are still plenty of questions, including exactly how effective alternative therapies might be and how they measure up against conventional methods to quit smoking.
But the alternatives should still stand as options for smokers determined to break the habit, said researchers led by Mehdi Tahiri of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
In general, smokers who want to quit should first try the standard approaches, which include nicotine-replacement therapy, medications and behavioral counseling, Tahiri said.
“But some people are not interested in medication,” he said, adding that in many cases the standard therapies had not worked. “Then I think we should definitely recommend (acupuncture and hypnosis) as choices.”
Researchers found that some studies showed that smokers subjected to acupuncture were more than three times as likely to be tobacco-free six months to a year later.
Similarly, across four trials of hypnosis, smokers had a higher success rate with the therapy compared to people who had minimal help.
But there were some caveats, researchers said. The success rate was not consistent in all the tests conducted, although the broad trends pointed to the benefits of alternate treatment.
A 2008 study that ran a few sessions of laser acupuncture on 258 smokers found that 55 percent who’d received the treatment quit the habit in six months, compared with four percent who were not given the treatment.
But a 2007 study from Taiwan that looked at needle acupuncture around the ear, the area typically targeted for smoking cessation, reported a lower success rate.
Only nine percent of those who were given acupuncture had quit after six months compared with six percent who stopped smoking without the treatment.
The situation was similar across the hypnosis trials. Two studies showed a significant impact : 20 to 45 percent of hypnosis patients were smoke-free six months to a year later. The other two trials showed smaller effects.
Nonetheless, Tahiri said, there was a “trend” toward a benefit across all of the studies of acupuncture and hypnosis.
There are still definitely questions, he added, about how many sessions of acupuncture or hypnosis might be necessary, or which specific techniques are best.
Other research reviews, though, have concluded that the jury is still out on alternative therapies for quitting smoking.
SOURCE: bit.ly/Khhv63
(Reporting from New York by Amy Norton at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies and Sanjeev Miglani)
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Want to quit smoking ? Try acupuncture or hypnosis
A man holds a cigarette in Tokyo August 3, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer
(Reuters) – Acupuncture and hypnosis have been promoted as drug-free ways to help smokers kick the habit, and there is some evidence that they work, according to a research review that looked at 14 international studies.
Researchers, whose findings appeared in the American Journal of Medicine, said that there are still plenty of questions, including exactly how effective alternative therapies might be and how they measure up against conventional methods to quit smoking.
But the alternatives should still stand as options for smokers determined to break the habit, said researchers led by Mehdi Tahiri of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
In general, smokers who want to quit should first try the standard approaches, which include nicotine-replacement therapy, medications and behavioral counseling, Tahiri said.
“But some people are not interested in medication,” he said, adding that in many cases the standard therapies had not worked. “Then I think we should definitely recommend (acupuncture and hypnosis) as choices.”
Researchers found that some studies showed that smokers subjected to acupuncture were more than three times as likely to be tobacco-free six months to a year later.
Similarly, across four trials of hypnosis, smokers had a higher success rate with the therapy compared to people who had minimal help.
But there were some caveats, researchers said. The success rate was not consistent in all the tests conducted, although the broad trends pointed to the benefits of alternate treatment.
A 2008 study that ran a few sessions of laser acupuncture on 258 smokers found that 55 percent who’d received the treatment quit the habit in six months, compared with four percent who were not given the treatment.
But a 2007 study from Taiwan that looked at needle acupuncture around the ear, the area typically targeted for smoking cessation, reported a lower success rate.
Only nine percent of those who were given acupuncture had quit after six months compared with six percent who stopped smoking without the treatment.
The situation was similar across the hypnosis trials. Two studies showed a significant impact : 20 to 45 percent of hypnosis patients were smoke-free six months to a year later. The other two trials showed smaller effects.
Nonetheless, Tahiri said, there was a “trend” toward a benefit across all of the studies of acupuncture and hypnosis.
There are still definitely questions, he added, about how many sessions of acupuncture or hypnosis might be necessary, or which specific techniques are best.
Other research reviews, though, have concluded that the jury is still out on alternative therapies for quitting smoking.
SOURCE: bit.ly/Khhv63
(Reporting from New York by Amy Norton at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies and Sanjeev Miglani)
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