Thinking 'bout THR News & Views
November 18-21, 2024
I was wrong again. Please pass the crow sauce.
I’ve been attending virtual peer support group meetings for a while. There are now 11 women in my group. All of us received a later-in-life diagnosis of Autism or Autism/ADHD. All of us live with depression.
Half of the women in my group smoke tobacco. They all know I used to smoke and that I have used alternative forms of nicotine for a few years. They were surprised when they found out I not only vape but occasionally use nicotine patches, lozenges, and pouches.
One other lady in my group used to smoke. She quit smoking cold turkey as she sat with her husband, watching him die from lung cancer that was most likely caused by his smoking. He was in hospice care, and she didn’t want to lose precious minutes with him by going outside to smoke. She says she “quit the hard way, a combination of cold turkey and scared straight.”
A couple of weeks ago, the five women who smoke and our therapist had a Zoom meeting with me to talk about the possibility of these ladies trying to quit smoking.
One woman is sure she’s not interested in quitting because she smokes when she’s stressed out. She also has a history of failed quit attempts and is not enthused about facing failure yet again.
It turns out that we all have a history of failed quit attempts.
At the beginning of our meeting, two ladies were interested in learning about switching to an alternative product, and two were unsure if they’d be willing to try that. They had seen awful things on the news, contributing to their uncertainty.
After our meeting, I talked on the phone with our therapist. Surprised, he said, watching me in that Zoom meeting was like seeing a different person. I was so energetic and enthusiastic. He’d never seen me so focused. He was impressed by how knowledgeable I was and how comfortable I appeared.
Then he told me I should consider helping people stop smoking as a career. He thought I was good at it! He wanted to know how I acquired so much expertise.
Dude! It was my career. I used to help people stop smoking. I owned a vape shop, and there, I witnessed the journey of hundreds of people who had quit smoking. Plus, I smoked for decades. That gave me lived experience.
Last year, I completed the Rutgers Tobacco Treatment Specialist program, which expanded my knowledge base to more methods of smoking cessation. I would hope that the combination of lived experience, helping people switch to safer alternatives, and smoking cessation training would make me exhibit some expertise!
It shocked me that he didn’t discuss quitting smoking with his patients. He said that he’s always been focused on their mental health needs, that so many seem to find something of value in their smoking, and that dealing with things like suicidal ideation needs to be a priority.
That opened the door for me, and once I got rolling, the poor guy struggled to get a word in until I came up for air and he could ask questions. <big grin>
I wrote about mental health and smoking last year and shared that op-ed with him. He said he wouldn’t know how to talk to his patients about smoking other than telling them they would be healthier if they quit. And he definitely wouldn’t know how to talk about things like vaping, which aren’t approved smoking cessation devices. I gave him the link to a collection of guidance for healthcare professionals and told him that if he had questions, I could steer him to knowledgeable people who work in healthcare or research.
I’m meeting weekly with the group of ladies who smoke. One has already switched to a vapor product and hasn’t smoked for about a week. Another one has reduced her smoking to three or four cigarettes per day thanks to the help of NRTs (patches and lozenges).
Two ladies wanted to pick a quit date, and both picked the Great American Smokeout (GASO) today.
The woman who is sure she doesn’t want to make another attempt at quitting smoking has chosen to participate in our weekly sessions because she enjoys talking to us and wants to “check things out.” She is our rebel, the grab the world by the private parts and go for the gusto member.
This woman also talked about how last year she remembers hearing a lot of stuff about quitting vaping for the GASO, and she heard how dangerous vaping is. It made sense to her to keep smoking, which is something she enjoys. In her eyes, switching without a health gain was unnecessary.
As I tried to explain to her how what she heard was in no way comparable to the harms of smoking, she interrupted me. She asked if I had written one of those op-eds I’ve been talking about on the topic of GASO and vaping because she wanted to read it. I told her I hadn’t, and she said I should.
I hung my head in shame and became silent.
Then I told her I hadn’t been writing op-eds for a while. I mean to, but I can’t. I haven’t been able to write anything outside of the safety of my newsletters, and even that is a forced effort. It turned into a conversation about what a rough year it was and how it destroyed my self-confidence and self-esteem.
It turns out that our little rebel is also very clever. She instantly came up with a “hold my beer” moment. She challenged me and made an offer I couldn’t refuse. She said if I’d write an op-ed about GASO and get it published by today, she’d buy a vape and try to quit smoking.
Game on, sister!
I won’t tell you how many hours it took to write that op-ed. It was more than two.
Honestly, it was more than two days. Some of us joke that I am the Queen of 10,000 words. As a child, I always got in trouble for talking too much. It is a rare occasion when I don’t have words or cannot speak them. But it does happen. And for the past few months, it has happened almost every time I want to write about something.
My piece, “The Great American Cop-Out,” went live this morning. Thank you, Filter, for publishing it. It has already been sent to my challenger, and she will purchase her first vape on her way home from work later today.
My op-ed touches on the topic of looking down on people for quitting smoking the wrong way because they haven’t used methods authorized by the FDA. I feel that is wrong. We should embrace any technique that works for the individual trying to stop smoking. That includes helping them deal with their cravings.
In 2022, I created a thread on X/Twitter (also on a Google doc). The challenge at that time was to find 50 ways to quit smoking. I had the wrong attitude while working on this. In a way, I was making fun of recommendations, like the one by the CDC, to try bird watching to quit smoking.
Please pass the crow sauce. It was a mistake to cop that attitude! Who am I to judge if watching birds gets someone past the urge to smoke? The same with sucking a straw, doing laundry, sorting mail, and the many other things on the list. It is vital that they don’t smoke, not what tool helps them achieve that!
Some of you would never consider a study to test the efficacy of bird watching as a smoking cessation method because, you know, at a population level, the results are going to be minuscule.
The realization of the mistake of my bad attitude about bird watching reminded me that we don’t have a population to worry about until we have several individuals. And while the job of some is to worry about the whole, my job is to worry about the individual and individual health because all individuals are equally important.
Was that a crow that just flew by?
#SeeThePeople #GreatAmericanSmokeout #GASO
Until next time….
PS: Quick update to yesterday’s Events & Opportunities edition:
Nov 26, 2024, 2:00 PM ET, A Seat at the Sitting - December 2024 The December Docket in 90 Minutes or Less. (FDA vs. Wages and White Lion)
Jeffrey Weiss - “I don’t intend to weigh in on politics – for example whether Robert Kennedy, Jr. is or is not the right selection for this cabinet position. Rather, my focus is on trying to analyze the implications of the upcoming changes in leadership at the White House, HHS, FDA and CDC for nicotine and tobacco issues.”
Jeffrey Willett - “The FDA received the PMTAs for several nicotine pouch products, including Zyn, On! and Velo, in 2020. Unfortunately, despite having these applications for four years, the FDA has yet to make any determinations regarding the public health implications of nicotine pouches. For several aspects of FDA’s scientific review, the properties of nicotine pouches are less complex than e-cigarettes which have heating elements, lithium-ion batteries, plastic casings, a wider mix of ingredients and deliver nicotine through pulmonary inhalation. However, nicotine pouch PMTAs have seemingly been lost in a backlog that still includes outstanding reviews for many e-cigarette products.”
Dr. Momir Pantelic - (thread) “Daily Heath Tip: E-cigarettes: are they a gateway to harm for youth or a lifeline for adults trying to quit smoking? It needs a nuanced look. Here’s what to know about vaping risks, benefits, and policies.”
Arielle Selya - (thread) “Is vaping *without* history of establ. smoking assoc'd w respiratory symptoms?”
Sarah Jackson - (thread) “As we approach the end of 2024, I thought I'd compile some of our key findings from the Smoking Toolkit Study this year. We've looked at *lots* of interesting things relating to smoking and vaping.”
Jeffrey Weiss - “One of the most significant public health challenges when it comes to tobacco harm reduction is that the very people who could potentially benefit the most from non-combustible vapor products typically believe, mistakenly, that they are as harmful—or even more harmful—than traditional smoking.”
48th Great American Smokeout Must Embrace Tobacco Harm Reduction. “The event aims to encourage the reduction of combustible cigarette use, but there is growing concern that groups like the ACS are conflating tobacco harm reduction products with more harmful combusted tobacco, potentially hindering public health efforts.”
Why Is England Missing Its “Smoke Free” Target? “Smoking in the United Kingdom has fallen substantially in the past 15 years. In 2023, England’s rate was 11.6 percent—a touch under the overall UK rate of 11.9 percent, which is down from 20.2 percent in 2011. But a CRUK analysis has found that England’s numbers are not declining nearly fast enough to meet the government’s target of “smoke free” status—a rate of 5 percent or less—by 2030.”
Nearly a half million die each year from tobacco use. Some groups face higher risk. “Despite this progress, the nation's top doctor is warning about stubborn disparities that remain among the 36 million adults and 760,000 kids who smoke.”
What Older Vapers Think of Youth-Vaping Panic. “Alan Beard is 71. He started smoking when he was 15…But still, he did quickly sense an adverse reaction to what he was doing. “I rapidly realized that, to some, I had quit ‘the wrong way,’ much to my amazement,” he said.”
IKE Tech, Ispire to File Age Gating Technology PMTA. “IKE Tech will submit a component PMTA, which would allow ENDS manufacturers to incorporate their blockchain-based age-gating solution if authorized.”
COMMENTARY: Experts tout new tobacco alternatives. “One frustration repeatedly expressed by presenters was that public health officials’ bias against nicotine kept them from looking objectively at the research regarding alternatives to traditional cigarettes.”
EXCLUSIVE: EU vape ban proposals lack “robust scientific basis” say Italian and Romanian governments. “In unusually strong language for diplomatic communications, the declaration also makes clear that both countries intend to ignore the parts of the recommendation that they don’t like, citing national sovereignty.”
Gays vape at significantly higher rates, surgeon general's report finds. (I am refusing to quote from an article that talks about “smoking” vapes and doesn’t mention harm reduction. ~Skip)
U.S. Surgeon General Releases New Report: Eliminating Tobacco-Related Disease and Death, Addressing Health Disparities. (I’m refusing to quote from this one, too. I guess I’m in renegade mode today! I’m so disappointed at the lack of acknowledgment of tobacco harm reduction. ~Skip)
The Great American Cop-Out “The United States needs to remember what the Great American Smokeout originally meant. The purpose was not to impose a nicotine-free society. The purpose was to save lives.”
Notes:
I create these newsletters as a personal project. They are not affiliated with any current or past employers or groups I do volunteer work with. I receive no financial compensation for my efforts to create these newsletters.
I believe that everyone deserves a seat at the table. If you’re interested in nicotine with a focus on THR, this newsletter is for you.
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