Quit Smoking: Who Should Pay?
Smoking Cessation Programs: Who Should Pay?
Quitting smoking is emotionally and financially taxing. Who is responsible to pay for the drugs and therapy required to kick the habit? The smokers or the tobacco makers?
Even the most hard-core nicotine-addicts, the people who swear their smoke is their best friend would kick the habit if given the proper tools. There is a plethora of smoking cessation aids on the market today: the patch, nicotine gum, hypnosis, acupuncture, Zyban™ and as of August 1st, 06 CHANTIX™ (varenicline), a new drug currently available in the US and soon to debut in Canada.
With such a wide choice of smoking cessation products available, why is it so difficult to quit smoking?
Pfizer™, the developer of CHANTIX™, has realized what every smoker who has tried to quit already knows: without a strong support program in place, killing the craving for nicotine is only half the battle. The psychological dependency that lasts long after the nicotine is out of the system should not be underestimated.
Armed with this information, Pfizer™ is offering a "a personalized behavior modification program" called GETQUIT, free of charge to anyone taking CHANTIX™.
The results from the clinical trials have shown CHANTIX™, in conjunction with the GETQUIT program, to be impressive (44 percent of patients who took CHANTIX™ quit smoking by the end of the 12-week treatment period,) compared to 30% on a similar drug and 18% on a placebo.
At anywhere between $7 to $10 per pack, one would think that the old excuse of "I can't afford to quit because the drugs/therapies cost too much," is history, but addicts, whatever their preferred drug, will convince themselves that any excuse not to suffer withdrawal is a good one.
So who should pay for Kick It programs? Some might say the addicts themselves, but the costs of smoking-related illnesses in the US are in the billions, and businesses and taxpayers feel that burden
To their credit, Pfizer does offer compensation to smokers who don't have health insurance or whose insurance does not cover smoking cessation programs, but it seems to me that it would be in the interest of corporate America to provide every addicted employee who wants to quit with the tools necessary to kick the habit.
Laws banning smoking both inside and outside buildings are becoming more commonplace. There was a time when smokers could light up anywhere, anytime but those days are gone. Smokers are the new pariahs. If we want to bring them back into the fold, perhaps we should seriously consider reaching out and offering them a helping hand in the form of cost-free or income-based drug therapy and support programs.
Great idea, but who should foot the bill? Non-smokers already do through health-care costs, and the cigarette makers and pharmaceuticals offer subsidies, but perhaps they should kick in a little more cash. After all, they are the ones who profit the most from the sales of tobacco products and the resulting illnesses.
