Money's Better Than E-Cigs Or Nicotine Gum At Helping Smokers Quit, Says Study (reuters.com) 132
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Providing free electronic cigarettes or other stop-smoking products to employees to get them to give up real cigarettes is less effective than the threat of taking away a cash reward for quitting, according to a new study that weighs the effectiveness of a variety of workplace incentive programs. The findings, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, call into question the claims by e-cigarette enthusiasts that the devices may be better than traditional quit aids at helping smokers to stop. The study is also significant because it may be the first to look at programs to get all smoking employees to quit, whether or not they've decided they want to do so. The results show that if the motivation isn't there, neither are the positive results. 9.5 percent of participants who got the free smoking cessation products plus a cash reward ($100 for the first month, an additional $200 at the three-month mark and $300 if they stayed smoke-free for six months) for staying away from tobacco quit.
I'm not convinced. (Score:5, Insightful)
I smoked a pack a day, and ended up using a vape (a mod box, not a little stick thing which has failed me in the past) to quit.
I save far more than the money they're talking about, and actually quit.
People buy a carton at a time, $100 isn't really much more than just quitting rather than buying a carton.
Re: I'm not convinced. (Score:2)
That was my thought. If someone will quit for $600 over the course of a few months, wouldnâ(TM)t they quit, anyway? Thatâ(TM)s less than theyâ(TM)ll save by not buying cigarettes.
Re: I'm not convinced. (Score:4, Insightful)
That was my thought. If someone will quit for $600 over the course of a few months, wouldnâ(TM)t they quit, anyway? Thatâ(TM)s less than theyâ(TM)ll save by not buying cigarettes.
Well, it stands to reason that the magic number was the savings AND the bonus combined. Or the psychological effect of being given something extra if they are incapable of internalizing the long term savings alone.
Re: I'm not convinced. (Score:4, Informative)
I guess I'm not considering lighter smokers (and not RTFA), I could totally see the money swaying a few a pack a week smoker and I know a couple of them (I'm skeptical that they're being honest with how many they actually smoke, but that doesn't matter when calculating what they think they spend).
Also, someone that buys by the pack may not see $6/day as $180/month, so $100 up front may help.
Also, if they self report, lies/truth bending are a thing. Like, if I were to lose $300 for saying I bummed a smoke at the bar two weeks ago, I'd never admit it, but if it was to test the effectiveness of vapes, I'd be completely honest.
Lastly, I'm really skeptical they used good vapes. I tried to quit with vaping twice, on tiny lil things, the worst. But a 100w modbox with all day battery, and all day tank did the trick (don't use even close to 100w, but those are the ones with the all day battery).
Aside: I think Europe's 2ml tank law is a big mistake, it will make it much harder to step down nicotine (whenever I step down nicotine I go through tanks quickly for a few days, it's a pain, but I've done it five times and soon I'll be at zero), and even when at a nice balance, kind of be a pain. I don't see the point of 10ml bottle limits either, but actually think the required testing is OK.
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The problem is the anti-smokers don't want a compromise with the vaping. They want a FULL STOP or the right to punch smokers in the face for their habits. It's today's us vs. them.
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I guess it depends. I think vaping is great - people can vape next to me, and I do not have to inhale a particle cloud. For the first time a long time, I sat next to a (smoking) smoker yesterday, and it reminded me why I hat smoking.
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Okay
I don't have time to convince the government though, you do that bit since you care so much.
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The problem is the anti-smokers don't want a compromise with the vaping. They want a FULL STOP or the right to punch smokers in the face for their habits. It's today's us vs. them.
I always thought it was the tobacco companies really pushing the vaping bans behind the scenes. Initially, in most places, vapes weren't regulated at all, so you could vape in all the places that smoking was banned in. My guess was that the cigarette manufacturers freaked out that tons of people would switch to vaping just for the convenience, so they lobbied to have vaping treated legally exactly like smoking, in order to create a level playing field (in which the tobacco giants, as the established players
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Big pharma is a second player in this "let's kill off vaping" scheme.
Vaping came along and had a massively higher success rate than patches, gums, whathaveyou. But big pharma is really allergic to solutions for medical problems, it only wants to "manage" problems. So it went all "cancerous" this, "exploding faces" that and vaping being a gateway drug to smoking (lol). But please, buy our (not really working) patches and gums!
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Big conspiracy was the third player.
They decided if they could turn it into a conspiracy, they could get more viewers for their youtube channels and also sell more homeopathic and holistic nicotine replacement snake oil. But big conspiracy is really allergic to the truth and only wants to 'manage' peoples prejudices. So they could ignore the part where they supply any evidence of their claims and just told people to 'do their own research' (big conspiracy double talk for 'watch more of our youtube videos)
T
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Today's "us vs. them" is literally everything. We can't even agree on "yanny" or "laurel" when one of the two isn't even a word.
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The problem is the anti-smokers don't want a compromise with the vaping. They want a FULL STOP or the right to punch smokers in the face for their habits. It's today's us vs. them.
Absolutely. The present day anti-smoking commercials have resorted to outright lies - especially the newspeakish Truth group.
People need something to hate, and since hating people based on race is kinda not good at all, smokers are a substitute.
The important thing is that those folk are addicted to their hate as much as smokers are addicted.
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The article is available at the NEJM. It says "Participants assigned to the rewards and redeemable deposit groups were eligible to earn $100, $200, and $300 if at 1, 3, and 6 months after the quit date, respectively, they submitted blood or urine samples for testing and the
Brain's reward system (Score:2)
Or the psychological effect of being given something extra if they are incapable of internalizing the long term savings alone.
That's what I'm thinking too.
And even if they are capable of intellectually understanding the long term saving along, monetary reward would still be a way to also stimulate on the instinctive way.
When you look at it(*), cigarettes work by hacking the brain's reward system (tweaking the dopamine levels. A little bit like cocaine, only not so violently).
The smoker who have addiction/craving are basically looking for a quick push on their "reward" button.
(And that's how you end up developing the addiction. The
Re: Brain's reward system (Score:1)
But does quitting smoking really save money for society? It means the smokers live longer, which means years more of non-productive lives in old age. Smokers live shorter, but happier lives since smoking brings pleasure (we're not supposed to consider that, though). Longer, more miserable lives in a nursing home provide more employment for the keepers, of course.
Let's be honest and not just perform half-baked cost analysis.
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Smokers live shorter, but happier lives since smoking brings pleasure (we're not supposed to consider that, though).
When I was down to 3-4 cigs/week, I was really happy with my habit. On evenings around 6:00, I may or may not sit on the patio and enjoy a cigarette. I was happy; Camel was happy; everyone was happy. Then my apartment complex banned smoking. I don't like admitting I'm desperate enough for a smoke to do it in the parking lot, so I started smoking in my car. I'm up to 3-4 cigs/day and I don't enjoy it at all. The nicotine rush is nice, but I don't enjoy the act of smoking while I'm driving. I tell myself that
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Well, it stands to reason that the magic number was the savings AND the bonus combined. Or the psychological effect of being given something extra if they are incapable of internalizing the long term savings alone.
There is no magic number, and this silly study is flawed to the point of uselessness.
6 months? 6 months in no way shape or form amounts to quitting. Actual quitting is measured in years. I "quit" back in the day for 6 months, then started again. Finally quit for real 42 years ago.
But if I was a smoker in this study, it would be no trick at all to simply stop for 6 months, then the day after my final check, enjoy a ciggy on the way back from using the money as a good chunk of a new laptop.
If only humans were rational... (Score:2)
I would be that fear of missing out on the bonus hits you far harder than the much higher cost of smoking.
I wouldn't be surprised if _fear of missing out_ on the bonus is more effective than the huge taxes that a factored into tobacco prices in many countries.
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I'm not convinced either. I was a smoker for 15 years and ended up using a vape to quit. I've been five years smoke free and three years vape free now.
I think money would only work on materialistic/greedy people or people with lower income.
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Casual/social smokers too maybe?
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IMO,that's be the worst reason to take the money (casual).
A company offered this to me ages ago (money in exchange for not smoking). I turned it down - my freedom of choice can not be purchased for that little. A friend of mine took the money, didn't smoke while at work, but kept smoking outside work... a lot. Any real smokers out there know that's going to be hell every day... it's like repeating the worst part of quitting ever day. And as was said above, $100 is nothing in comparison to the cost of smokin
Re:I'm not convinced. (Score:4, Informative)
I smoked a pack a day, and ended up using a vape (a mod box, not a little stick thing which has failed me in the past) to quit.
I save far more than the money they're talking about, and actually quit.
People buy a carton at a time, $100 isn't really much more than just quitting rather than buying a carton.
I smoked ~2-1/2 packs/day for 45+ years and also quit by switching to vaping using a mod-box. Tried those little pen/stick types and ended up going back to smoking. Don't even get me started about those crappy little things the tobacco companies have been trying to push. They're horrid. and that's being generous.
I agree completely, the money they're talking about is less than the money saved from quitting. I know that even the savings combined with the cash payment TFA refers to would not have motivated me enough to quit. Now I'm 3+ years smoke-free. The best part for me is that I'm a musician in a working band and in many venues I don't have to go outside to smoke between sets, often in bitter winter cold which isn't good for a guitarist's hands.
Strat
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As a ex-smoker of tobacco, I can say that torture probably would work. The torture of quitting versus the torture of an electronic device that monitors your nicotine levels and delivers a short sharp jolt of volts to your genitals should you nicotine levels rise. I'll bet by far the majority will quit quicker by this method than any other, except the fetishist, they would of course smoke more than ever. I'd be willing to bet a 90% or higher success rate would be quite achievable.
Of course you could simply
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I think the real motivation IS the money. It might not seem like a whole lot of money ($100 isn't a lot) but to a lot of people, that seems like something achievable - I quit smoking, I get $100 per month.
It's real, it's physical, and for a lot of people, it's very concrete - you can show me $100 and wave it in front of them. It then becomes a goal - an extra $100 for literally doing "nothing" (yes, I know withdrawal is painful, but seeing that $100 makes them want to go through with it).
It's especially so
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I used to think that the health effects of smoking were half due to nicotine (mostly vascular effects)and half due to the other chemicals like tar(lungts), but apparently the health damage of nicotine is not proven, or at least is not of the same order of magnitude. That would mean if you switch to vaping and avoid putting ugly stuff in there (which should be fairly easy to fix if it happened) that you can mostly disregard the health effects. Then quitting vaping is mostly a matter of money. I don't even kn
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In a vape shop, those 30mL b
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that's excellent thanks.
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It's not 50/50, but nicotine does seem to have detrimental health effects, and they're not trivial.
Also, while the vapour is almost certainly better for you than cigarette smoke, it's health effects aren't really well understood. There's at least one researcher in the area who's said he at first assumed it was negligible, but has constantly increased his concern.
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I really didn't find any proof. In any case I used to attribute the serious vascular effects of smoking to the nicotine but that was not justified.
Hence my deduction that the remaining health effects of nicotine will at least be an order of magnitude lower. A factor 10 lower would still be significant but if you're a bit risk tolerant (I'm thinking of prioritizing using comparative risk) , much less of an issue.
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I spend
$20/month on coils
$20/month on accessories (I keep breaking vapes and tanks)
$30/month on juice
These are likely all actual costs, and I've been excessive, and I do none of the work myself. I could cut back on vaping rather than on nicotine level and save a lot on juice I suspect, but my plan is to ramp nicotine to zero then cut back on vaping (currently at 3mg/ml down from 12).
I just checked how much total I've spent from the two places I order from, and divided by the ten months from my first order.
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I know withdrawal is painful, but seeing that $100 makes them want to go through with it
In my experience (everyone's different), the smoking habit is at least as much mental as physical. I went from a pack+/day to zero overnight and the biggest challenge for me was not "smoking" pen caps absentmindedly. I was off smokes for 15 years. Going from a fifth+ of whiskey/day to zero overnight... That's fucking withdrawals.
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Yeah, detoxing from alcohol is terrifying (haven't done it, but I've acompanied a couple friends through it).
It was every bit as bad as the heroine scene in train spotting.
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I've never touched heroine, but I've gone through aggressive alcohol withdrawals twice. I don't know what to compare them too. They're just fucking terrible. Caffeine withdrawals will give you headaches; nicotine withdrawals will make you nervous and irritable; alcohol withdrawals will make you fucking dead. I should have been under care. The second time I had one seizure that I'm aware of and medication might have been gentler than curling up in the tub for 3 days. When somebody tells me that they're withd
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We value being given money (or perceiving that we're being given money) more than we value money we already have. Consumer economies are basically founded on this quirk. The most blatant examples are rewards programs.
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Well (after RTFA), the study found no statistically significant difference between ecigs and money. It didn't say what type of setup they used for ecigs (which is where my skepticism comes from based on experience and observation).
Also though, it had almost an additive effect when doing both, which leads me to believe not that one method is particularly more effective than the other, but that they are effective on different people.
The money and the aids likely work for different people.
I'm super confused (Score:3)
healthcare is not a deciding factor (Score:2)
Presumably, the employer's share of healthcare expenses for smoking employees is higher than the cost of this program, which appears to be $600 plus the cost of cessation products
This assumes that the company provides healthcare.
It also doesn't counter those who pretend to smoke then pretend to give up when they didn't smoke in the first place. The people who are worse off are genuine non-smokers.
Re: healthcare is not a deciding factor (Score:1)
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It isn't possible to pretend to smoke. They test for nicotine in your system.
If you think you can't intentionally fail a drug test, you're not thinking hard enough.
Re: healthcare is not a deciding factor (Score:1)
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Unless it's the Donald Duck strategy where they catch you with smokes and make you puff down a whole pack while they watch, I'm confident that I could get enough nicotine in my system to fail a blood or urine screen. Have you ever tried getting THC out of your system? Now that's a bitch. I hadn't smoked weed in >2 months and still failed my pre-employment screen. That's when I made the miraculous discovery that I'd encountered an employer that didn't care if I had a cannabis card and my life changed fore
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Can I start smoking and then quit to reap these rewards?
Not to mention the companies that give smokers extra breaks so they can get their fix. I remember working retail and warehouse stuff during summer for college and wishing I too could go stand outside for 5 minutes every now and then and do nothing.
Well to be fair a LACK of money also helps (Score:5, Insightful)
I successfully quit after losing my job and being unable to afford cigarettes
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Holy Cow (Score:5, Funny)
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All the people who actually have quit disagree with you.
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My thoughts exactly. Smokers aren't most people though, as far as self integrity goes I'd say they're low on the scale. Every time they smoke they're lying to themselves about the consequences, which I think is a far bigger lie than one that earns you $600
Yikes, your self-insert into your assertion is very telling!
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Are you suggesting they borrowed clean blood samples from a co-worker to get $600?
Smoking at this point is really dumb (Score:2)
If you smoke cigs, stop today! Switch to e-cigs. You will not regret it.
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Why would you want to continue smoking at all?
Because it feels good. Because it helps you focus. Because you gain weight when you quit. As you mention, the addictiveness makes it really hard. Switching to e-cigs is not hard though. Any smoker can do it. It's not a matter of will-power, it's a matter of going slightly out of your way for a day or two.
Re:Smoking at this point is really dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been a smoker for 16 years, then a vaper for 6 more. I quit a few months ago, effortlessly, it just happened. Sold all my vaping tools and never looked back.
However, my appetite increased and I gained weight. I'll have to go see a nutritionist, because my current overall weight is well within the limits but it gathered on my belly and sides, which is not good.
People have been asking me how did I fight addictiveness. I haven't. I just reduced the amount of nicotine in the liquid until at some point I stopped adding it altogether, but continued vaping non-nicotine liquids. Then at some point I realized I was only vaping 20-30 puffs a day, down from over 120. So I shelved the device I was using and that was it, really.
Now, if someone offered me 600 dollars over 3 months to quit, I wouldn't have felt incentivized, and I'm Romanian, 600 bucks is a lot of money here.
Re: Smoking at this point is really dumb (Score:2)
Eating more vs eating same (Score:2)
Nicotine has a direct action on the amount of energy you brun vs store.
Even if you keep the exact same physical activity levels and diet, once you quit smoking, you'll suddenly start putting on weight.
So it's not necessarily true that the parent poster was eating more and/or exercising less and needs to be reminded.
Also, for some people, quitting smoking works by shifting their craving for quick reward to another target. For the parent poster that was shifting to vaping and the progressively shifting to vap
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Re: Smoking at this point is really dumb (Score:2)
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The money thing works for me (Score:4, Funny)
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I started sucking on $100 bills when I quit.
The cocaine and bacteria on those notes probably make it healthier to just keep smoking.
Study Also Finds Water Is Wet (Score:3)
I'm really not sure what the point of this study was. If the summary's accurate, all it found out was something we already knew: that the key factor on if you've got any chance of quitting is if you want to quit or not.
Anybody willing to RTFA to find out if they checked if combos of quitting aids and bribe to motivate people to want to quit are more effective than just one tactic on its own? That'd get this out of the 'water is wet' realm of studies...
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After browsing the summary of the article, if they didn't like the result, it was statistically meaningless.
Traditional methods for quitting (patches / gum): 2.9% eCigs: 4.8% Cash + traditional quit methods: 9.8% Cash + traditional + threat of taking back the cash: 12.7% Cash + eCigs: ???
The 4.8% and 9.8% results were deemed "not statistically meaningful.", whereas apparently the 2.9% and the 12.7% were OK.
Thank you for looking! It does sound strange, since about the only way you'd get that is if each group had a different alpha--a threshold for the results being statistically significant--which you're not supposed to do, because it screws with the validity.
This is part of the war on Vaping (Score:5, Insightful)
For whatever reason, there seem tone a lot of people who have decided vaping is really bad, and are trying to kill it, so I see this article as another arm of that effort.
I personally hate smoking. Like really detest it. But vaping while I find a bit annoying, is 1000x times less annoying or horrible than real smoking.
It's also far safer, and gives people nicotine they crave without being nearly as dangerous as "real" smoking.
So don't give in to the people who are trying to kill off vaping, it is helping a LOT of people really improve their health profile.
Re:This is part of the war on Vaping (Score:5, Insightful)
there seem tone a lot of people who have decided vaping is really bad, and are trying to kill it
Ever heard of the cigarette industry?
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I'm still with you though, I think vaping is helping far more than it is hurting. I just wish a certain subset of its users would have a little more tact.
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It's turned into a moral panic about children vaping and how manufacturers are targeting them by selling appealing flavors. I guess adults are supposed to be stuck using flavors that taste awful?
I've read stories about schools removing bathroom stall doors because kids might secretly be vaping there. There are also several companies selling vaping detection devices to schools. Kids are getting caught vaping in class, etc.
The prohibitionists aren't content with banning smoking in public places, now they
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Ah, sanctioned hate is your thing.
Only for smoke, not smokeRS. I have nothing against smokers, but cigarette smoke is pretty obnoxious and hard to breathe around.
If you live in a US metro city, please don't seek higher ground and observe the toxic stew that is the air you breathe
Hi Big Tobacco, a few pollutants in the air is NOTHING like smoke from even a small cigarette. And I say that having been to LA before a bunch of times. The only thing that came close was Beijing, there I might actually agree wit
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Or one could read things based on science using real studies stretching back hundreds of years. While the "Addiction is a choice" book may* have a point in weakening some myths it seem* to reinforce others. It also seem* to be describing things in a dishonest way - while addiction in itself may not be a disease it is associated with such. A massive panic attack combined with the physical symptoms of withdrawal _is_ a mental problem, one that can be very damaging.
But of course almost everything is a choice.
No surprises there (Score:2)
Makes sense (Score:1)
In related news .... (Score:2)
Leave it to the e-cig modders to come up with a sub-ohm version of this.
okeeeee (Score:2)
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Or maybe we could pay people to provide evidence of wrongdoing?
We, or more specifically the DNC, has already paid Fusion GPS to have that evidence fabricated. Where have you been?