Tobacco chief's 'not hard to quit' comment sparks renewed debate about tobacco addiction, writes MICHELLE McDONAGH
“To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know because I’ve done it a thousand times.”
AS FAR back as 150 years ago, Mark Twain was struggling with his addiction to smoking tobacco and today, there is clear scientific evidence that tobacco – and the nicotine it contains – is a seriously addictive substance. However, last week the head of one of the world’s largest cigarette manufacturers sparked outrage when he said that “it’s not that hard to quit” smoking.
Chief executive of Philip Morris International, Louis C Camilleri, made his statement at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in New York in response to a cancer nurse’s remarks.
Elisabeth Gunderson had cited statistics that tobacco killed more than 400,000 Americans and five million people worldwide each year.
She said a patient told her that of all the addictions he had beaten – crack, cocaine, methamphetamine – cigarettes had been the most difficult.
Camilleri, a long-time smoker, is reported to have responded: “I don’t think we get enough recognition for the efforts we make to ensure that there is effective worldwide regulation of a product that is harmful and that is addictive.
“Nevertheless, whilst it is addictive, it is not that hard to quit . . . There are more previous smokers in America today than current smokers.”
The company later reiterated its position that “tobacco products are addictive and harmful”.
Dr Brian Maurer, chairman of Ash Ireland and consultant cardiologist, says Camilleri’s statement was so obviously untrue that he couldn’t believe the chief executive said it and could possibly believe it.
“I am a practising cardiologist for 47 years and of all the problems I have had to deal with, giving up cigarettes – even if a person is ill as a result of smoking – is the most difficult thing to do,” he says.
“I have seen patients with peripheral vascular disease at risk of amputation who smoke right up until the operation and afterwards, even though they know that if they stop smoking, it usually stops the progression of the disease. Even threatened with amputation, they still find it very difficult to give up smoking. It’s quite the most difficult addiction.”
Maurer points out that there is substantial literature on nicotine addiction. Nicotine Addiction in Britain, the report of the Tobacco Advisory Group of the Royal College of Physicians, London in 2000, concluded that cigarettes were properly categorised among the most addicting substances as this form of nicotine delivery maximised the addictive effects of the drug.
“The pharmacologic and behavioural processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine. We can further conclude that tobacco dependence is a serious form of drug addiction which, on the whole, is second to no other,” the report concludes.
The report states that nicotine addiction is usually established within one year of experimenting with cigarettes, which, for most life-long smokers, is before they are 16. The nicotine in tobacco is found to keep one in four people smoking and to be responsible for the withdrawal symptoms suffered by those who attempt to quit.
Seven thousand people die from the effects of tobacco each year in Ireland and thousands of others are ill because of tobacco-related diseases.
“We know that about 25 per cent of the population are still smoking and although 70-80 per cent of people try to give them up in any one year, only about 4 per cent succeed. So we have to put in place support mechanisms for people who wish to give up smoking, either through the Government and public health or on a voluntary basis. Smokers trying to quit smoking are like alcoholics trying to give up alcohol, they do need support,” says Maurer.
He said that giving up cigarettes was one of the hardest things he ever had to do himself. “I lived from not having a cigarette to not having the next one. Every time I had a desire to have one, I turned my mind to something else and that was what worked for me.
“There are several very good books out there and there are prescription medications and nicotine-replacement products which all help to wean people off nicotine, but they are a prop rather than a cure.”
In relation to the new electronic or e-cigarettes which simulate the act of tobacco smoking, Maurer points out that some serious reservations had been expressed about them.
For support in giving up smoking, see giveupsmoking.ie or contact the National Smokers’ Quitline at 1850-201203.
