Answer Addiction

Tag: smoking cigarettes

  • Michigan Offering Free Nicotine Patches And Gum Through September

    Michigan Offering Free Nicotine Patches And Gum Through September

    Michigan residents can receive eight weeks’ worth of free nicotine gum, patches or lozenges by making a call to a tobacco quitline.

    Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is handing out free quitting aids to individuals who are looking to quit smoking tobacco products through September 30 of this year.

    Any Michigan resident can get eight weeks’ worth of free nicotine gum, patches or lozenges simply by calling the Michigan Tobacco Quitline at 800-QUIT-NOW, reports MLive.

    The offer is part of an effort to reduce smoking-related illness throughout the state alongside the Tips From Former Smokers campaign by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Tips campaign shares stories from those living with illnesses caused by cigarette smoke—either primary or second-hand—to help inspire current smokers to quit.

    “CDC’s Tips campaign reminds people of the harmful effects of smoking and connects them with important resources like the Michigan Tobacco Quitline,” said MDHHS chief medical executive and chief deputy director for health Dr. Joneigh Khaldun. “MDHHS is committed to helping Michiganders quit tobacco products and reduce their risk of tobacco-related illnesses like cancer and heart disease.”

    The Tobacco Quitline, meanwhile, is open 24/7 and is available in English, Arabic and Spanish. In addition to free quitting aids, callers can get online coaching or advice via text messages.

    According to the MDHHS website, tobacco “kills more people in our state than AIDS, alcohol, auto accidents, drug overdoses, murders, and suicides combined.” The CDC estimates that, although the number of people who smoke tobacco has decreased in recent years, it’s still responsible for one in five deaths in the entire United States. This makes it “the leading cause of preventable disease and death” in the country.

    Currently, 34.3 million U.S. adults smoke tobacco cigarettes, and over 16 million live with smoking-related illnesses. The number of smokers has declined from nearly 21% of the adult population in 2005 to 14% in 2017. Much of this decline can likely be attributed to aggressive anti-smoking and tobacco education campaigns across the U.S. as the federal and state governments fight to reduce this stubborn health crisis.

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has a list of major national campaigns, including Tips from Former Smokers by the CDC as well as FDA campaigns such as Every Try Counts for those who have attempted to quit multiple times and This Free Life, which is geared toward LGBTQ+ smokers.

    “Think about all the progress we’ve made. We’ve simply come too far to set ourselves back by using tobacco,” reads the This Free Life website. “This Free Life helps LGBT young adults achieve their best by encouraging them to live tobacco-free.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Washington Raises Legal Smoking Age To 21

    Washington Raises Legal Smoking Age To 21

    Washington joins states such as California, Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts who have also increased the legal smoking age to 21.

    This week, Washington became the eighth state to change the legal age to purchase cigarettes to 21. 

    On Wednesday (March 27), the Washington Senate passed a bill that raised the minimum age for buying cigarettes, tobacco, and electronic smoking devices, including vapes, according to The Herald.

    “This bill is about saving lives,” said Democratic state Senator Patty Kuderer, who says that raising the smoking age not only prevents lifelong use, but will also save the state “millions of dollars in health care costs.”

    Republican state Senator Phil Fortunato said that the bill did not make sense if the legal age of adulthood is 18. “Either you are an adult and intelligent enough to make your own decisions at 18, or not,” he said. “This is a personal freedom issue.”

    People under 21 will still be able to purchase tobacco and electronic smoking devices on tribal lands in the state—something that many lawmakers, including Republican state Senator Doug Ericksen objected to.

    “Why create a two-tier system,” he said. “Let’s have one fair standard for all of Washington.”

    California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia all have a minimum age of 21 for purchasing tobacco and smoking products. Many cities have also adopted the measure, according to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, which advocates for increasing the smoking age. 

    “Nearly all smokers start as kids or young adults, and these age groups are heavily targeted by the tobacco industry,” the group writes. “Increasing the tobacco age to 21 will help to prevent young people from ever starting to smoke and to reduce the deaths, disease and health care costs caused by tobacco use.”

    In Hawaii, a lawmaker has presented an even more drastic proposal, trying to raise the minimum smoking age to 100 by 2034. 

    “In my view, you are taking people who are enslaved from a horrific addiction, and freeing people from horrific enslavement. We, as legislators, have a duty to do things to save people’s lives. If we don’t ban cigarettes, we are killing people,” Representative Richard Creagan told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

    Although rates of cigarette use are decreasing among teens, more young people are using electronic cigarettes, which pose health risks. The FDA is even considering a medication to help kids quit vaping.

    Matthew L. Myers, who is the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, told CNN, “The FDA has concluded that the level of addiction it is seeing among youthful e-cigarette users is so disturbing and so unprecedented that it needs to at least ask whether we need a solution that goes beyond what we ever did with cigarettes.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Could Vaping Lead To Heart Attacks, Depression?

    Could Vaping Lead To Heart Attacks, Depression?

    The jury is still out on whether e-cigs are safer than cigarettes—but mounting evidence shows that vaping comes with its own health concerns.

    People who use e-cigarettes may be uninformed about the potential risks of vaping—though it is often portrayed as being a “safer” alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes.

    Health officials worry that young people are using e-cigarettes at rising rates. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has established tough regulations on vaping.

    Now, a hard-hitting new study on e-cigarettes—the “largest-ever study conducted” on the effects of vaping—claims that people who vape are more likely to suffer heart attacks, coronary artery disease and depression.

    Researcher Mohinder Vindhyal, an assistant professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine Wichita, told Science Daily, “Until now, little has been known about cardiovascular events relative to e-cigarette use. These data are a real wake-up call and should prompt more action and awareness about the dangers of e-cigarettes.”

    According to Vindhyal’s findings, adults that indulge in vaping can be 56% more likely to have a heart attack, and 30% of them are more likely to have a stroke than people who don’t use tobacco products. Similarly, people who vape are also 55% more likely to have depression and/or anxiety than people who don’t use e-cigarettes.

    Vindhyal added, “When the risk of heart attack increases by as much as 55% among e-cigarette users compared to nonsmokers, I wouldn’t want any of my patients nor my family members to vape. When we dug deeper, we found that regardless of how frequently someone uses e-cigarettes, daily or just on some days, they are still more likely to have a heart attack or coronary artery disease.”

    Some look to vaping as a way to wean off of cigarettes—but while e-cigarettes are considered less dangerous than smoking tobacco, “that doesn’t mean that vaping is safe,” Vindhyal says.

    This study gathered information from over 96,000 respondents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey over a period of several years.

    Vindhyal will present his research findings at the American College of Cardiology’s 68th Annual Scientific Session, which will be held in New Orleans on March 16.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Hawaiian Lawmaker Wants To Raise Smoking Age To 100

    Hawaiian Lawmaker Wants To Raise Smoking Age To 100

    In 2016, Hawaii raised the legal smoking age to 21.

    A state representative in Hawaii wants to take a hardline approach to cigarettes, by banning their sale and raising the legal age to 100. 

    “The state is obliged to protect the public’s health,” state Representative Richard Creagan told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. “We don’t allow people free access to opioids, for instance, or any prescription drugs. This is more lethal, more dangerous than any prescription drug, and it is more addicting. In my view, you are taking people who are enslaved from a horrific addiction, and freeing people from horrific enslavement. We, as legislators, have a duty to do things to save people’s lives. If we don’t ban cigarettes, we are killing people.”

    Creagan, a physician, started smoking when he was a teenager and used cigarettes to stay awake through medical school. However, he said he now realizes just how dangerous cigarettes are. 

    “Basically, we essentially have a group who are heavily addicted—in my view, enslaved by a ridiculously bad industry—which has enslaved them by designing a cigarette that is highly addictive, knowing that it is highly lethal,” he said. 

    In Hawaii the legal smoking age is 21, already higher than in much of the country. However, Creagan said this is not effective at stopping young smokers. 

    “It’s slowing it down, but it’s not stopping the problem,” he said. 

    Creagan’s proposal—which has two other sponsors—would gradually raise the legal age to purchase cigarettes. Next year it would rise to 30, to 40 in 2021, 50 in 2022 and 60 in 2023. By 2024, the legal smoking age in Hawaii would be 100. 

    The plan does not include cigars, chewing tobacco or vapes, which Creagan sees as less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. 

    However, Creagan’s efforts may seem slightly misguided in light of current research about tobacco and nicotine use among youth. Although tobacco use remains relatively low among teens, the Monitoring The Future survey released in 2018 found that the use of vapes is increasing dramatically. 

    “Vaping is reversing hard-fought declines in the number of adolescents who use nicotine,” said Richard Miech, the lead author and investigator of the study. “These results suggest that vaping is leading youth into nicotine use and nicotine addiction, not away from it. If we want to prevent youth from using drugs, including nicotine, vaping will warrant special attention in terms of policy, education campaigns, and prevention programs in the coming years.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Smoking, Alcohol Use Linked To Different Brain Areas

    Smoking, Alcohol Use Linked To Different Brain Areas

    A new study suggests that individuals who smoke may do so in order to increase their brain connectivity with nicotine.

    Connectivity in certain areas of the brain may affect smokers’ and drinkers’ tendencies to continue the behavior, new research has found. 

    The study, done by researchers in the department of computer science at the University of Warwick, looked at the neural mechanisms connected to two types of substance use: drinking alcohol and smoking. 

    Researchers studied 2,000 study participants, according to Science Daily. In doing so, they discovered that those who smoked had low connectivity, particularly in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, which is a brain region that is connected with impulsivity.

    This suggests, according to researchers, that individuals who smoke may do so in order to increase their brain connectivity with nicotine, which has a stimulating effect. It also suggests that being impulsive may play a role in beginning and continuing to smoke. 

    In drinkers, researchers noted that there was high overall connectivity in the brain, particularly in the brain region associated with reward, which is the medial orbitofrontal cortex. The stimulation in this reward center, according to researchers, may be what leads some individuals to drink. 

    “Importantly the extent of these functional connectivity changes in the brains of drinkers and smokers correlated with the amount of alcohol and nicotine being consumed,” Science Daily stated. “Critically they were even detectable in individuals smoking only a few cigarettes or drinking one unit of alcohol every day.”

    Researchers also noted that it may be possible to study an individual’s connectivity at age 14 to predict whether they would smoke or drink at age 19. 

    “These discoveries help to show that there are different neural bases of different types of addiction, and that the orbitofrontal cortex, a key brain region in emotion, is implicated in these two types of addiction,” said Professor Edmund Rolls from the University of Warwick. 

    According to Professor Jianfeng Feng, also from the University of Warwick, the findings of this study could be vital when it comes to public health implications. Feng cited a World Health Organization study which states there are 1.1 billion people in the world who smoke and 2.3 billion who drink. He also noted that more than 3 million people die annually due to alcohol use disorder.

    “These are key discoveries that advance our understanding of the neurological bases of smoking and drinking and also provide new evidence on the different neurological mechanisms that are related to these two types of human addictive behavior, smoking and drinking, and these advances have implications for prevention and treatment of these two substance use,” Feng noted. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Could Social Media Addiction Be Worse For You Than Cigarettes?

    Could Social Media Addiction Be Worse For You Than Cigarettes?

    Social media addiction is being compared to cigarettes but can it really do that much damage?

    Social media can certainly be addicting, and there are some who feel it can be harmful to your mental health if you spend too much time on it. But can it truly be more harmful than cigarettes?

    As Forbes reports, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, made this analogy at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, and he also proclaimed that social media companies like Facebook should be regulated “exactly the same way you regulated the cigarette industry.”

    In an interview with CNBC, Benioff also proclaimed that “Facebook is the new cigarettes. You know, it’s addictive. It’s not good for you. There’s people trying to get you to use it that even you don’t understand what’s going on. The government needs to step in. The government needs to really regulate what’s happening.”

    As Benioff concluded, “Technology has addictive qualities that we have to address… product designers are working to make those products more addictive and we need to rein that back.”

    But is he overreacting?

    There have indeed been studies that claim that being addicted to social media is a real phenomenon and, like video games, social media is designed to be addictive. When you’re running a business, you want people to spend as much time on your site as possible to drive sales.

    Forbes listed a number of factors that explain why people can be vulnerable to social media addiction. One of them is that people are “social creatures” who want to reach out and belong, and we crave validation. Social media can reward that validation with “likes,” “follows” or a smiley face emoji.

    Another factor that can drive social media addiction in people is FOMO, or the “fear of missing out.” According to one study, 67% of people polled who used social media were terrified that they would be missing out on something if they didn’t check in with social media.

    As Sean Parker, former president of Facebook, told the Guardian, businesses use these plaforms as “a social-validation feedback loop… exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

    This is actually not the first time that social media has been called “the new cigarettes.” Oren Frank, the founder and CEO of Talkspace, made the same prediction in the Huffington Post several years ago, warning that “social media platforms are not only full aware of their impact, but actually leverage it to make sure this addiction is maintained and increased, not hesitating to use psychological levers and biases to guarantee that we will keep coming back.”

    At the same time, comparisons were recently made to social media and cocaine, though scientists from the Oxford Internet Institute felt this was an irresponsible comparison to make.

    The director of the institute, Andrew Przybylski, told Business Insider, “Dopamine research itself shows that things like video games and technologies, they’re in the same realm as food and sex and all of these everyday behaviors, whereas things like cocaine, really you’re talking about 10, 15 times higher levels of free-flowing dopamine in the brain.”

    View the original article at thefix.com