There is a lot of stop smoking help available on the market today but they can mostly be categorized as either pharmaceuticals or nicotine replacement therapies. What both pharmaceuticals and NRT have in common is that they are produced by the world’s biggest drug companies. Now call me a conspiracy theorist but I’d don’t believe that these companies are creating stop smoking aids for the benefit of humanity. They are huge companies with a crowd of shareholders to keep happy after all.
For this reason I was always wary of using drugs when I attempted to stop smoking, of course in the end I was using an electronic cigarette made without regulation in China, so you could say I’m slightly crazy. The thing is, I’ve recently been hearing about all the nasty side affects caused by one stop smoking aid drug in particular known as Champix.
Champix has been a phenomenal success since it was introduced to the market, with an incredible 9 million people using it as a stop smoking aid and the drug raking in almost $900 million for Pfizer in its first year on the market. However, in the 12 months there have been a number of alarming reports about users suffering from severe depression and even suicides while taking the drug.
Pfizer denies any relationship between the drug and the psychological problems suffered by users, it says that “Stopping smoking, with or without treatment, is associated with nicotine withdrawal symptoms and the exacerbation of underlying psychiatric illness”. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t convince me much. I’ve certainly never experienced, or heard of others experiencing, suicidal thoughts due to nicotine withdrawal.
The choice is yours if you want to use these products but I’m glad I decided to give them a miss and stick with my trusty e cigarette and my copy of “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking”. 