need to add title here

Extra: Smokeless Tobacco & Cigarettes

April 4, 2010 4:50 PM

Dr. Stephen Jay is a professor of medicine and public health at Indiana University School of Medicine.

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by jmichael07 April 11, 2010 9:58 PM EDT
"[Incredulously] You really *are* addicted...'Yeah.'" That was a sweet ending! I enjoyed and appreciated this story. Who'd ever heard of snus nor orbs or any the new tobacco candy? If ever a deal could be made with the devil for a little "lesser" evil, this is the way it is bought and sold.
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by AlanSelk April 11, 2010 3:58 AM EDT
Glad I don't have Dr. Jay as my doctor. First off, because of his great moral indignation against tobacco companies he would be very reluctant to recommend a product that could save the life of a patient. It appears the health and well being of his patients are secondary to his self-righteousness. The road to hell is certainly paved with good intentions.

The effective products he talks about, as in nicotine gum and patches, have a dismal success rate. Long term under 5%. Perhaps Chantix, with about 100 suicides attributed to it, along with depression, violent behavior and psychosis. Clearly a case where for some the cure is far worse then the problem. Later in the other interview Dr. Jay breaks down and states that when all else fails and as a last resort he would recommend smokeless. This guy is a joke as a doctor.

When a product is known to be at least 98% less harmful then smoking, has about a 70% success rate, has lead Sweden to have the lowest tobacco related cancer rates in all the industrialized world, has no secondary issues for anyone but the person using it, and yet the good doctor is reluctant to recommend it.

If the good doctor was actually interested in public health, products like snus should be the first thing recommended for smokers. With the high success rate compared to the junk products the pharmaceutical companies pawn off on smokers it's a no brainer. Sadly Dr. Jay would be considered liberal by todays tobacco-control group standards. The lady from tobacco control in the main article is being paid by the state of Indiana to work against the greater public health. It appears it's still quit or die with her, The problem with that is... people die. Tobacco Reduced Harm could save millions of lives if this country get out of it's mindless anti-tobacco stupor.
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by rickcharles606 April 5, 2010 1:14 PM EDT
Yeah I find it interesting that he admits that smokeless tobacco products are "significantly less harmful" than smoking cigarettes. What are the effective products he refers to?? Who knows, but I'm betting some pharmaceutical company developed them, which leads me to believe he's merely protecting his interests. Wanna bet that he's on one or more research teams that receive grants from the government to "develop" smoking cessation products. The truly sad part is that Swedish snus is far less expensive than anything bigPharma turns out, and far more effective at smoking cessation.

Tobacco users in America need to educate themselves on truly effective reduced harm products, and bring economic pressures to bear on the devisive American tobacco companies. Or just purchase Swedish snus and quit smoking, it saved my life!
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by smokerdave April 5, 2010 3:18 AM EDT
All I can say about this is: WHY EVEN BOTHER.

I am 83 years old, stopped smoking at the age of 53......have helped thousands of smokers to stop smoking since then as a volunteer smoking cessation educator and counselor, including 17 years helping our veterans in s smoking cessation program conducted by the Veterans ?dminstration in southern California.

Success is accomplished in stopping smoking now, as it was in the days when I stopped smoking.......lotsa' guts and a commitment........no phony gimmics, which soon become very boring and the person then resumes his or her former smoking behavior.

Let's just say "I've been there, done that, seen it all, and heard it all."
(Including all the BS you can imagine, including the so called "statistics."

Fini........

Dave Wallace,
aka "Smokerdave"
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by VocalEK April 5, 2010 12:06 AM EDT
Dr. Jay admits that smokeless tobacco products are significanly less harmful than smoking. Yet he refuses to endorse switching to less harmful tobacco products because he claims that there are "effective" products already on the market. FDA-approved nicotine products have a 1- year success rate of about 10%. That's what he considers effective? What other product is considered a success when it is only 10% effective? In contrast, Swedish snus has proven to help 60% of users get off and stay off smoking cigarettes. About 80% of regular users have been able to completely replace tobacco cigarettes by using electronic cigarettes, which deliver higher doses of vaporized nicotine than the FDA-approved inhalers. It's time that scientists start recommending the products that actually work.
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