A Headless Habit
Man is the only animal who can commit the irrationality of spending money over things that harm him. All addicts belong to the inglorious category of the rationally irrational people. They spend a substantial amount of their hard earned income on buying diseases caused by their addiction.

Dear Mr. Smoker,
Among all the slow poison available in our world, tobacco smoking is perhaps the most popular and the most used slow poison. What is the number of smokers in the world is anybody’s guess, but the number of its victims are well estimated. Tobacco smoking is responsible for about 4.2 million deaths every year and if the present trend of smoking continues, by 2020, it will become the leading cause of death and disability killing more than 10 million people a year. The report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States reported that tobacco smoking is closely linked to some 25 life threatening diseases, the most common among them are:

*   Cancer
*   Heart Disease
*   Ulcers
*   Chronic Bronchitis
*   Asthma and Stroke
*   Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
*   Emphysema (Distension of the lung with breathing  difficulties).

Mr. Smoker,
Smoking can kill your Sex Life. Do you know that men who smoke are 50 percent more likely to suffer from impotence than men who do not smoke!!!
Nicotine acts as a vasoconstrictor. That is, it constricts the arteries and blood vessels including those that are responsible for a man’s erection. Nicotine also lowers testosterone and other hormone levels in the blood. And it increases the concentrations of fatty acids in the blood, leading to clogged arteries and further restricting blood flow to the genitals.

Ms. Smoker,
The hazards of smoking are even greater for you. There’s evidence that smoking can interfere with a woman’s ability to have an orgasm. Nicotine can also damage ovaries, causing menstrual abnormalities and decreased estrogen production. It can lead to early menopause with such side effects as increased aging and vaginal dryness. If you’re on any contraception pill, the news is even worse. Women between 30 and 39 years of age who smoke and take the birth control pill, are 10 times as likely to have a stroke or a fatal heart attack as non smokers. Talk about smoking killing your sex life!

What Is A Cigarette?

Cigarette is a notoriously efficient ‘Slow Poison Delivery Device’ (SPDD).
"It is a euphemism for cleverly crafted product that delivers just the right amount of nicotine to keep its user addicted for life before killing him or her.” Said Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of WHO. “A cigarette is the only consumer product which when consumed as indicated kills." 

What
Do You Smoke?

Only about 4000 poisonous chemicals that include beside nicotine:
* Carbon monoxide (the dangerous gas that comes out of our cars)
* Formaldehyde (used to preserve dead bodies)
* Ammonia (kitchen and bathroom cleaner)
* Carbon dioxide (which contributes to global warming)
* Tar (a carcinogen deposited in lungs)

Why Smokers Smoke?
An Urdu couplet perhaps replies this question most aptly when it says:

Pahle peete thai kabhi makool mauka dekh kar 
Rafta, rafta besabab peene ki aadat ho gai

(To start with, we used to drink or smoke occasionally. Gradually it turned into a habit and then into an addiction).

WHY  IS QUITTING AND STAYING QUIT
HARD FOR SO MANY PEOPLE

The answer is NICOTINE. Nicotine dependence is a neurobiological addiction and is formally classified as a medical disease. Nicotine stimulates the release of a number of chemicals in the brain, most notably dopamine and norepinephrine, which affect the reward and withdrawl pathways of addiction in the brain, respectively. When a person stops smoking, the norepinephrine activity in the brain stops leading to withdrawl symptoms. Typically smokers experience physical symptoms following cessation or reduction of nicotine intake including: craving, irritability, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, restlessness, sleep disturbances, decreased heart rate and increased appetite or weight gain. To escape these withdrawl symptoms a tobacco addict continues to take tobacco.

The Paradox
Quit smoking is a strange paradox. If not all, at least 70 percent wish to quit smoking but only 2-3 percent gather the will and succeed in their endeavor. Quitting smoking therefore needs both-the wish as well as the will.

Alternative Therapies
The good news is that for those who have the wish but not the required will to quit smoking, there are now other alternatives. They include:

Palliatives and Placebos :
In addition to will power, self-quitting, other methods of smoking cessation have been used with varying degrees of success. These include behavioural therapy, group programmes, mouth washes (designed to make the taste of cigarette) repellent hypnosis and acupuncture. The evidence in support of these methods is largely lacking, as there have been few adequate randomised controlled trials with follow up of all participants. Current evidence does not suggest specific greater than placebo.

Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT): Till recently, pharmacological interventions were confined to the use of nicotine replacement therapy which in sum and substance meant the replacement of a bigger evil by a relatively smaller evil. NRT involves substituting one from of nicotine delivery for another through stepwise reduction in the dose size. For NRT nicotine is available in a number of forms including:

* Gum patch
* Transdermal patch
* Nasal spray
* Lozenge
* Inhaler

The only rationale for NRT is that it helps overcoming many difficulties associated with the nicotine withdrawal. It is based on the theory that it is the tar and heat, rather than nicotine that make smoking harmful.

Nicotine-Free Treatment: Thanks to the human ingenuity in developing a nicotine-free therapy that the smokers today neither require the will nor the alternative source of nicotine to get rid of smoking. All what is required is the WISH TO QUIT.

Healingtouch city, under the banner of Quit Smoking Clinic, is providing an attempt to make the people of the smokeless city smokeless by providing this therapy to all those who have the wish to get rid of their smoking addiction.