USA: New Study Suggests That Low-Nicotine Cigarettes Could Help Smokers Quit

Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Article Date: 15 Nov 2007 - 4:00 PDT

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A new study suggests that forcing tobacco companies to cut the level of nicotine in cigarettes can help smokers shake off their addiction.

It was assumed that low nicotine cigarettes would simply encourage people to smoke more. Instead, a quarter of those taking part in the study quit smoking completely, while others reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked by more than a third.

Experts had feared a reduced nicotine strategy would be self-defeating, since increasing the numbers of cigarettes smokers would then be exposed to even greater levels of dangerous tobacco chemicals.

This is already known to occur with so called mild cigarette brands which contain normal nicotine levels, but are engineered to burn faster and have ventilation holes above the filter.

The new findings provide support for plans now under discussion in Congress to allow tobacco products to be regulated in the US in the same way as medicines.

Under the proposals, the US Food and Drink Administration (FDA) would be empowered to develop and enforce standards designed to make cigarettes safer, which could include reducing nicotine yields so that cigarettes are less addictive.

In the study, adult smokers were asked to smoke their usual brand for a week. They were then put on a six week regimen of smoking cigarettes with progressively lower levels of nicotine. At the end of the six weeks, they were free to return to their usual brand and most did. But tested a month later, they were smoking forty per cent fewer cigarettes per day than they did before the study. Furthermore, a quarter of the smokers quit their habit entirely while the study was in progress.

Professor Neal Benowitz, who led the research team from the University of California at San Francisco, said: "This study supports the idea that if tobacco companies were required to reduce the levels of nicotine in cigarette tobacco, young people who start smoking could avoid becoming addicted, and current smokers could reduce or end their smoking."

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