American Council on
Science and Health July 5, 2006
New drug helps a bit with quitting smoking, as
may smokeless tobacco
A new drug called
varenicline has shown significant but moderate success in helping smokers
quit compared to placebo and another smoking cessation drug, bupropion,
according to three studies published in the Journal of the American
Medical Association.
Varenicline is a
non-nicotine drug that may help smokers quit by stimulating the release
of the chemical dopamine in the brain to reduce craving and withdrawal,
while also blocking the effects of nicotine from cigarettes.
Varenicline shows promise as
a tool to help smokers quit.However, it is far from a panacea.In fact, the increase in quit rates was fairly small, even among
those smokers who were able to stay off cigarettes for the first twelve
weeks of the analyses.
Varenicline has been
approved by the FDA as a twelve-week course of treatment, with an
additional twelve weeks if the smoker was able to quit initially.It is important to note that the
majority of participants in these three studies did not quit smoking,
even with varenicline.
The best results in the
American studies were only 23% abstinence at one year.Many participants
experienced adverse effects from the medication, stopped taking it before
they were supposed to, and dropped out of the study.
About 70% of smokers want to
quit and nearly 41% say they have attempted to quit within the past
year.Only 4-5% of smokers who try
to quit each year succeed in doing so.
However, after repeated attempts,
40-50% of smokers eventually quit smoking.Varenicline may be helpful for some
smokers who wish to quit, but others will need to use another method.
One method that could help
some smokers quit is the use of smokeless tobacco.Using smokeless tobacco causes
significantly fewer adverse health effects than smoking cigarettes.While using smokeless tobacco is not
risk-free, it can be a helpful form of harm reduction for smokers for
whom complete tobacco abstinence is unrealistic.Others may want to quit tobacco
completely, and while it takes most smokers more than one attempt to
quit, switching to smokeless tobacco in the meantime can reduce the
harmful effects of smoking.
Smokeless tobacco is a topic
often avoided in discussions on smoking cessation.This is a disservice to the millions of
American smokers attempting to quit.For some of them, smokeless tobacco could be the method that works
and potentially saves their lives.
- Molly Lee is the Earhart
Foundation Research Intern at ACSH
