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Medicine The Almighty Buck Science

Money's Better Than E-Cigs Or Nicotine Gum At Helping Smokers Quit, Says Study (reuters.com) 132

Posted by BeauHD from the motivated-by-money dept.
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.
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Money's Better Than E-Cigs Or Nicotine Gum At Helping Smokers Quit, Says Study More

Money's Better Than E-Cigs Or Nicotine Gum At Helping Smokers Quit, Says Study

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  • I'm not convinced. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AvitarX ( 172628 ) <me&brandywinehundred,org> on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @11:39PM (#56663386) Journal

    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.

    • 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)

        by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @11:46PM (#56663414)

        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)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 ) <me&brandywinehundred,org> on Thursday May 24, 2018 @12:28AM (#56663540) Journal

          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.

          • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

            by Calydor ( 739835 )

            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.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by thsths ( 31372 )

              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.

            • 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

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by NoZart ( 961808 )

                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!

                • 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

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by asylumx ( 881307 )

              It's today's us vs. them.

              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.

            • 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.

          • 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.

            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

        • 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

          • 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.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gnick ( 1211984 )

              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

        • 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.

      • It's well known that we're not rational economic creatures... There are many examples of this, for example loss aversion [wikipedia.org]..
        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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      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.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        Casual/social smokers too maybe?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by unrtst ( 777550 )

          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)

      by BlueStrat ( 756137 ) on Thursday May 24, 2018 @12:31AM (#56663556)

      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

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      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

      • 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

        • Vaping costs around $140 per year for me. I mix my own liquid from the raw components (Propylene Glycol, Vegetable Glycerine, Flavor concentrate, Nicotine). I'll buy 1 liter of PG , 0.5 liter VG, and 0.5 liter of nicotine-VG suspension. The annual cost of the liquid components is $110 per year. Those materials will yield around 52 bottles (30 mL) of liquid, each of which lasts me about a week. Add in the cost of the flavor and heating coils for another $25 - $30 per year.

          In a vape shop, those 30mL b

          • that's excellent thanks.

          • Man, im glad that my local shop makes their own stuff (in a lab) and sells 120mL for $28. Good stuff too.
            • Yeah, you can definitely save money buying in bulk. During the span when I bought pre-mixed bottles (about 3 years ago), I wanted to try a variety, so smaller bottles made sense. My favorite flavors only seemed to come in the 30mL quantities at the time. Then I was gifted 4 or 5 larger bottles (50 or 60 mL) by someone who was giving it up. The flavors were good and the nicotine content was the right percentage for me at the time (9 mg/mL), but they all made me cough constantly. That was what convinced

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          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.

          • 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.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 )

          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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gnick ( 1211984 )

        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.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 )

          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.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gnick ( 1211984 )

            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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      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.

  • I'm super confused (Score:3)

    by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @11:40PM (#56663388)
    Why don't the companies just pay non smokers more? Can I start smoking and then quit to reap these rewards? TFA doesn't really go into these questions that I can tell, it just says that it costs $3000 to $6000 more a year to employ smokers.

    • 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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @11:53PM (#56663442)

    I successfully quit after losing my job and being unable to afford cigarettes

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Holy Cow (Score:5, Funny)

    by bistromath007 ( 1253428 ) on Thursday May 24, 2018 @12:09AM (#56663486)
    Amazing new study shows people will lie for $600
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Amazing new study shows people will lie for $600

      Are you suggesting they borrowed clean blood samples from a co-worker to get $600?

  • At this point e-cigs are so much better than cigarettes in every way, that you'd have to be a moron to keep using traditional cigarettes at this point. It is true that e-cigs make you look like a tool, but cigarettes make you look like a tool and a fool.

    If you smoke cigs, stop today! Switch to e-cigs. You will not regret it.
  • I started sucking on $100 bills when I quit. That and the sublingual Bitcoin tokens really seems to be doing the job. I initially tried smoking $2 bills but kept inhaling a super-thin piece of wire. And those holograms. Hoo-boi. Them'll do a nummer on ya.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      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)

    by Cinnamon Beige ( 1952554 ) on Thursday May 24, 2018 @01:48AM (#56663724)

    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...

  • This is part of the war on Vaping (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday May 24, 2018 @01:54AM (#56663742)

    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)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday May 24, 2018 @04:31AM (#56664088)

      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?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by asylumx ( 881307 )
      I agree with you about it being annoying but not as 'horrible' as real smoking. One counter, though, is that people vape in places they'd never smoke (in this day and age). I had a colleague who was vaping in our board room during meetings. To me that's a bit overboard, not just a little annoying.

      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.

    • 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

  • Although not a universally true, it is a very common occurrence that people will stop smoking when properly motivated to do so: the promise of payments for doing so fits the bill, and so does (for the most part) a hefty heart attack at an early age. While the physiological (and psychological) addiction is a fact, most smokers do not stop smoking simply because they do not want to do so.
  • That makes perfect sense. Give the dog a bone and he won't bite you ever.

  • ... electrodes attached to genitals came in a close second to money.

    Leave it to the e-cig modders to come up with a sub-ohm version of this.

  • So you get a lot of money for giving up an unhealthy habbit which you shouldn't have taken up in the first place.. So what do non-smokers get as a reward for not smoking in the first place? So the smoker get's $600 after half a year after he/she quits, but the nonsmoker doesn't get anything? that sounds very unfair.

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