 |
Joel Spitzer | |
|---|---|
 Spitzer in a 2006 video at WhyQuit | |
| Known for | "Never take another puff" |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Smoking cessation |
Joel Spitzer (born c. 1957) is an American smoking cessation educator. He currently serves as technical advisor at WhyQuit.com, a free nicotine dependence recovery website. [1] All of his videos and writings on WhyQuit.com end with his advice, "Never Take Another Puff!" [2]
Spitzer began presenting smoking prevention seminars at the age of 14 in 1971 as a volunteer speaker for the American Cancer Society (ACS). [3] By the time he was a senior in high school, he was lecturing in medical schools and at professional medical conferences. In 1977, he became Smoking Program Coordinator for the Chicago Unit of the ACS. [3]
In 1978, Spitzer became the smoking programs coordinator for the Rush North Shore Medical Center in Skokie, Illinois — the first hospital-based prevention program in the United States. Although the program was a 3-year pilot, he stayed for 22 years. [3] At his lectures, perhaps a hundred people would listen and not speak to him, but the medical center gave him a feeling of purpose. He wrote, "I called the people from my first group daily and they called and kept in touch with me." [3]
From 2000 through 2008, Spitzer provided smoking cessation and prevention services for the Evanston Department of Health and Human Services and Skokie Health Departments. [3] [4] The clinic was funded by the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement [5] and educated people as to why they smoke, why they should stop, how to stop, and how to stay off cigarettes. [6] Since 1972, Spitzer has conducted more than 350 six-session stop smoking clinics to over 4,500 participants, and 690 one-session seminars to approximately 100,000 people. [3]
Spitzer himself has never smoked a cigarette. He answered this complaint at nearly every clinic by pointing out that smoking cessation teachers (who often assume that they were "typical" smokers) think that what worked for them will work the same for everybody. Instead, Spitzer bases his efforts on observation and analysis of the successes and failures of those attending his clinics. [3]
Spitzer wrote more than 100 stop smoking articles for his clinic graduates; in 2000, he began to share them with sites on the Internet. [3] John R. Polito, who founded WhyQuit.com in 1999 and is the site's editor, said, "I've yet to locate anyone who has presented more quitting programs than Joel. He's not only the Hank Aaron/Babe Ruth of smoking cessation, like Peter Jennings, his wisdom and insights seem to be in a league of their own." Spitzer compiled most of the letters in a 149-page book called Never Take Another Puff which is available for free download in keeping with his philosophy that quitting smoking should be free. [7] The book has been downloaded over 2.4 million times. [1]
Although doctors give cold turkey a 10% success rate (and only 5%–10% of quitters are successful on any given attempt), [8] Spitzer encourages smokers to quit cold turkey. [9] Still, cold turkey continues to prevail over pharmacotherapy quitters in most real-world quitting method surveys. [10]
Spitzer discourages cutting down first, and discourages the use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). [9] He believes that no one advocates quitting cold turkey because no money is made from it. [8] "There’s no easy way out of a drug addiction," he said. "It's really hard to quit by cold turkey but it's almost impossible by cutting down. If you have a choice between hard and impossible, go for hard." [5]
Tobacco smoking is the practice of burning tobacco and ingesting the resulting smoke. The smoke may be inhaled, as is done with cigarettes, or simply released from the mouth, as is generally done with pipes and cigars. The practice is believed to have begun as early as 5000–3000 BC in Mesoamerica and South America. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 17th century by European colonists, where it followed common trade routes. The practice encountered criticism from its first import into the Western world onwards but embedded itself in certain strata of a number of societies before becoming widespread upon the introduction of automated cigarette-rolling apparatus.
Smoking cessation, usually called quitting smoking or stopping smoking, is the process of discontinuing tobacco smoking. Tobacco smoke contains nicotine, which is addictive and can cause dependence. As a result, nicotine withdrawal often makes the process of quitting difficult.
"Cold turkey" refers to the abrupt cessation of a substance dependence and the resulting unpleasant experience, as opposed to gradually easing the process through reduction over time or by using replacement medication.
Allen John Carr was a British author of books about stopping smoking and other psychological dependencies including alcohol addiction.
Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is a medically approved way to treat people with tobacco use disorder by taking nicotine through means other than tobacco. It is used to help with quitting smoking or stopping chewing tobacco. It increases the chance of quitting tobacco smoking by about 55%. Often it is used along with other behavioral techniques. NRT has also been used to treat ulcerative colitis. Types of NRT include the adhesive patch, chewing gum, lozenges, nose spray, and inhaler. The use of multiple types of NRT at a time may increase effectiveness.
Nicorette is the brand name of a number of products for nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) that contain nicotine polacrilex. Developed in the late 1970s in Sweden by AB Leo in the form of a chewing gum, Nicorette was the first nicotine replacement product on the market.
Nicotine marketing is the marketing of nicotine-containing products or use. Traditionally, the tobacco industry markets cigarette smoking, but it is increasingly marketing other products, such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Products are marketed through social media, stealth marketing, mass media, and sponsorship. Expenditures on nicotine marketing are in the tens of billions a year; in the US alone, spending was over US$1 million per hour in 2016; in 2003, per-capita marketing spending was $290 per adult smoker, or $45 per inhabitant. Nicotine marketing is increasingly regulated; some forms of nicotine advertising are banned in many countries. The World Health Organization recommends a complete tobacco advertising ban.
NicVAX is an experimental conjugate vaccine intended to reduce or eliminate physical dependence to nicotine. According to the U.S. National Institute of Drug Abuse, NicVAX can potentially be used to inoculate against nicotine addiction. This proprietary vaccine is being developed by Nabi Biopharmaceuticals of Rockville, MD. with the support from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. NicVAX consists of the hapten 3'-aminomethylnicotine which has been conjugated (attached) to Pseudomonas aeruginosa exotoxin A.
Nicotine withdrawal is a group of symptoms that occur in the first few weeks after stopping or decreasing use of nicotine. Symptoms include intense cravings for nicotine, anger or irritability, anxiety, depression, impatience, trouble sleeping, restlessness, hunger or weight gain, and difficulty concentrating. Withdrawal symptoms make it harder to quit nicotine products, and most methods for quitting smoking involve reducing nicotine withdrawal. Quit smoking programs can make it easier to quit. Nicotine withdrawal is recognized in both the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the WHO International Classification of Diseases.
Tobacco harm reduction (THR) is a public health strategy to lower the health risks to individuals and wider society associated with using tobacco products. It is an example of the concept of harm reduction, a strategy for dealing with the use of drugs. Tobacco smoking is widely acknowledged as a leading cause of illness and death, and reducing smoking is vital to public health.
An electronic cigarette is an electronic device that simulates tobacco smoking. It consists of an atomizer, a power source such as a battery, and a container such as a cartridge or tank. Instead of smoke, the user inhales vapor. As such, using an e-cigarette is often called "vaping". The atomizer is a heating element that vaporizes a liquid solution called e-liquid, which quickly cools into an aerosol of tiny droplets, vapor and air. E-cigarettes are activated by taking a puff or pressing a button. Some look like traditional cigarettes, and most kinds are reusable. The vapor mainly comprises propylene glycol and/or glycerin, usually with nicotine and flavoring. Its exact composition varies, and depends on several things including user behavior.
Nicotine dependence is a state of dependence upon nicotine. Nicotine dependence is a chronic, relapsing disease defined as a compulsive craving to use the drug, despite social consequences, loss of control over drug intake, and emergence of withdrawal symptoms. Tolerance is another component of drug dependence. Nicotine dependence develops over time as a person continues to use nicotine. The most commonly used tobacco product is cigarettes, but all forms of tobacco use and e-cigarette use can cause dependence. Nicotine dependence is a serious public health problem because it leads to continued tobacco use, which is one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide, causing more than 8 million deaths per year.
Nicotine Anonymous (NicA) is a twelve-step program founded in 1982 for people desiring to quit smoking and live free of nicotine. As of July 2017, there are over 700 face-to-face meetings in 32 countries worldwide with the majority of these meetings occurring in the United States, Iran, India, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Australia, Russia and in various online community and social media platforms.. NicA maintains that total abstinence from nicotine is necessary for recovery. NicA defines abstinence as “a state that begins when all use of nicotine ceases.
Elbert D. Glover is an American researcher and author in the field of tobacco addiction and smoking cessation. After several academic positions he retired as a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland at College Park School of Public Health where he served as chair of the Department of Behavioral and Community Health from 2005 to his retirement in 2015. Moreover, he was entrepreneur, editor, publisher and co-founder and principal owner of Health Behavior and Policy Review and co-founder, owner, editor, and publisher of American Journal of Health Behavior and Tobacco Regulatory Science. Glover was the founder of the American Academy of Health Behavior and served as its first president from 1997 to 2001.
Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States was a landmark report published on January 11, 1964, by the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, chaired by the then Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Luther Leonidas Terry, M.D., regarding the negative health effects of tobacco smoking.
The majority of lifelong smokers begin smoking habits before the age of 24, which makes the college years a critical time for tobacco companies to convince college students to pick up the habit of cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoking in college is seen as a social activity by those who partake in it, and more than half of the students that are users do not consider themselves smokers. This may be because most college students plan to quit smoking by the time that they graduate.
Smoking in Syria is steadily increasing in popularity amongst the Syrian population, mainly in the forms of cigarettes or narghiles. In Syria, the General Organization of Tobacco manages the growth and exportation of tobacco products. Syrians collectively spend about $600 million per year on tobacco consumption. As of 2010, 20% of women and 60% of men smoke and 98% of the overall population is affected by passive smoking. Narghiles and cigarettes are the two main forms of tobacco consumption. Despite the assumption that smoking, specifically the narghile, is embedded in Syrian culture, this phenomenon has only recently become widespread. Health officials are currently working on smoking cessation programs and policies, to remove this idea that smoking in Syria is an essential part of the culture, to educate regarding health effects, and to prevent citizens from smoking in public places.
There are smoking cessation policy initiatives by the United States government at federal, state and local levels.
The scientific community in United States and Europe are primarily concerned with the possible effect of electronic cigarette use on public health. There is concern among public health experts that e-cigarettes could renormalize smoking, weaken measures to control tobacco, and serve as a gateway for smoking among youth. The public health community is divided over whether to support e-cigarettes, because their safety and efficacy for quitting smoking is unclear. Many in the public health community acknowledge the potential for their quitting smoking and decreasing harm benefits, but there remains a concern over their long-term safety and potential for a new era of users to get addicted to nicotine and then tobacco. There is concern among tobacco control academics and advocates that prevalent universal vaping "will bring its own distinct but as yet unknown health risks in the same way tobacco smoking did, as a result of chronic exposure", among other things.
Jed Eugene Rose, Ph.D. is an American academic professor, inventor and researcher in the field of nicotine and smoking cessation. Rose is presently the President and CEO of the Rose Research Center, LLC in Raleigh, North Carolina. Additionally, he is the Director of the Duke Center for Smoking Cessation at Duke University Medical Center.