Following the money

[JonesCarpeDiem]

I was doing some research on the company that made my brand of cigarettes.

The company was one of the first, founded  in 1760.

Loews (The movie and hotel conglomerate) purchased it in 1968.

They were one of 4 principals to negotiate the tobacco master settlement agreement in 1998.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agreement

Please read the link. It explains their deviousness in order to make money off addicts.

In 2012 they purchased the most highly advertised ecig on the market.

ReynoldsAmerica, one of the two largest tobacco companies, makes nicotine replacement products for Europe but is now selling their nicotine gum in the United States.

I guess the cat is out of the bag, they want our money  They could care less about us.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/buying-cigarettes-quit-smoking-aids-company/story?id=9057261

http://tctactics.org/index.php/Pharma

  

   The prescription nicotine dependence market is set to grow strongly at a compound annual growth rate of 16% to reach $4.6 billion by 2016 ...   ^[1]

This perhaps would not be quite so cynical if the products had a proven success rate. However, the success rate is abysmal. Reports indicate a success rate of 19% at best, lower actually than completely unaided quitting:

  

   According to the study, the three-month success rate with NRT is only 19% for light smokers, compared to 26% for unaided quitting. For heavy smokers, the three-month success rate is 9% for NRT compared to 15% for unaided quitting.   ^[2] 
   

Belinda Cunnison, of pro-choice group Freedom2Choose, investigated the common claim that you are “four times more likely to quit with NHS,” which is used in most promotional materials for NRT products, and frequently in press releases on the subject of smoking cessation.

   

    

      I traced this claim to a Department of Health web page, which also claimed a 15 per cent success rate at 12 months for NRT. The evidence that was supposed to demonstrate this 15 per cent success rate and the "four times more likely to quit" phenomenon was not listed in the footnotes, so I wrote to the Department to ask for it.  

   

   

    

      It took over three months to get the information    ^[3]  

   

   

When that information was finally forthcoming, the figures showed a 6.5% quit rate for those using NRT, and a 6% quit rate for those going "cold turkey, i.e. without using NRT." So much for the "15% success rate" and "four times more likely" claims.

   

One study even found a quit rate using NRT as low as 0.8%!^[4] Hardly a ringing endorsement of NRT. In fact in most cases, the success rate was higher if no NRT was used.