General Arcade and Retro Chat - Insert Coin -

Myrddin wrote: »

So people fail to quit because they've been brainwashed to think it's difficult to do? Dude, seriously?

To a degree yes. As an example, how many ad's do you see for cessation products where it's claimed giving up smoking is easy? How many WHO reports, news articles, blogs, tweets and so on and so forth are published that claim giving up smoking is easy?

Few to none.

It is in part because we've always been told it's difficult to give up smoking. That message is reinforced by the media and by big pharma. Sure, big pharma gives the impression that cessation will work wonders. Gum, spray, hypnotherapy, patches, Zyban and so on. It's a massive market driven by big pharma to make big money. If it works, great for the consumer. If it doesn't, it's more money to line the pockets of the pharmaceutical giants. And if folks fall off the wagon, it's money poured back in to tobacco companies coffers, or to the vaping traders (who appear to be being bought up or muscled out by tobacco companies at a rapid rate).

I'm not saying the entire deal is down to brainwashing, apologies if I came across as doing so. But in my opinion it is a massive contributing factor. For me, once that realisation became mental clarity, and that I realised the only good thing about smoking is nothing, I just switched off.

STG.Otaku wrote: »

To a degree yes. As an example, how many ad's do you see for cessation products where it's claimed giving up smoking is easy? How many WHO reports, news articles, blogs, tweets and so on and so forth are published that claim giving up smoking is easy?

Few to none.

It is in part because we've always been told it's difficult to give up smoking. That message is reinforced by the media and by big pharma. Sure, big pharma gives the impression that cessation will work wonders. Gum, spray, hypnotherapy, patches, Zyban and so on. It's a massive market driven by big pharma to make big money. If it works, great for the consumer. If it doesn't, it's more money to line the pockets of the pharmaceutical giants. And if folks fall off the wagon, it's money poured back in to tobacco companies coffers, or to the vaping traders (who appear to be being bought up or muscled out by tobacco companies at a rapid rate).

I'm not saying the entire deal is down to brainwashing, apologies if I came across as doing so. But in my opinion it is a massive contributing factor. For me, once that realisation became mental clarity, and that I realised the only good thing about smoking is nothing, I just switched off.

I put that down to the fact that it's not easy to give up, unless certain conditions are met. I hear what you're saying, & it's an interesting point, I don't think I could quite stretch that far though. I'd be a believer in big pharma agendas, and a believer in the tobacco industry having strong marketing influence....but they'd be competing against each other if there was a darker side to all this, not playing off one another. Surely if big pharma were out to make money from smokers, there'd be a sure fire product on the market now that could do the trick & make people quit...& it'd cost a lot too. But there isn't. Nicotine, along with other muck that gets put into cigarettes, is highly addictive.

Star Lord wrote: »

Addictions are different for everyone. Some people find it easy, some find it hard. The more motivation there is to quit, along with a genuine desire to do so, the easier it is.

Agreed, & my own story holds true with this. I needed to lose weight, badly. I was 5'11 & as near as makes no difference to 16 stone this time last year. I'd go as far as to say I had an addiction, and it was sugar/food. Around August last year, I began the weight loss process. By mid December just gone, I was 12 stone on the button. The guts of four stone gone in a very short space of time, & not as a result of some fad crash diet.

Was it easy? Honestly, yes, it was. I still wake up every day & hope it wasn't all a dream! The weight fell off me, & I had previously been set for the long haul. But it'd be incredibly wrong of me to assume just because I found it easy, that everyone would find it so. I'm not everyone, & everyone isn't me. I put my success down simply to having a eureka moment, a few months before I started my weight loss. I realised the damage I was doing, I realised where I was heading (diabetes land no doubt), and realised that I needed to accept that changes had to be made. I then set about educating myself about weight loss, & eventually the penny dropped about calorific intake & daily calorific requirements. Calculating my daily requirements, Very, very simple. Before that I was confuddled from all the jargon, the plans, the diets, the marketing & business that is weight loss.

So basically I was ready to sort myself out. Smokers, or any addicts, need also to be in that place, where they are ready to make changes & have accepted so. You can't just decide to quit, & that's I'd imagine those of you who did quit were similarly 'ready' and had that eureka moment at some stage too.

Anyway, what the hell are we talking about at this stage I thought the Spiderman stuff was bad!

Myrddin wrote: »

Surely if big pharma were out to make money from smokers, there'd be a sure fire product on the market now that could do the trick & make people quit...& it'd cost a lot too. But there isn't.

But that's just it, there probably could be a product developed to facilitate this. Heck, there probably already has been. That's the brilliant part of it all though. Why put out a solution when there is money to be made from tobacco, cessation products, government revenue and so on.

Then there are the pies that tobacco companies have their fingers wedged in to. Phillip Morris for example, owns Nabisco, General Foods, various vinyards and wine brands and so on. Too much business to lose, to much revenue to lose.

And then there is big pharma. This, unrelated as such, but just in, for example:

http://www.naturalnews.com/048522_measles_outbreak_vaccine_hysteria_science_fraud.html

I do hear what you are saying too, and agree to a certain extent. A solid mindtstate is required in part, it would appear the candidate choosing to quit needs to discover their trigger though in order to do it, and succeed. I think though it's suffocated by the fact we're brainwashed in to believing it's difficult to quit.


EDIT: Here's another beauty from Glaxo. Why bother making a fraudulent Flu jab? Because there is a few quid to be made.

http://www.naturalnews.com/048422_flu_shot_scientific_fraud_controlled_trials.html