How to stop smoking? Start taking pills!!!!

The first quit-smoking pill, designed specifically to stop the urge to light up, has arrived in South Africa.

Unlike the anti-depressant pill Zyban, which has side-effects that helped smokers quit, Champix is the first pill designed specifically to stop the urge for nicotine.

Over a 12-week cycle, the pill removes the desire for a smoking "high" by blocking the part of the brain that is satisfied by the effect of smoking.

Clinical psychologist and founder of the Society for Research on Tobacco and Nicotine, Dr Karl Fagerstrom, warned smokers of the dangers of their addiction at a media briefing in Johannesburg yesterday.

"One of every two smokers will die early," he said, adding that the problem was "more important than HIV or malaria".

Six million people worldwide die from smoking every year. In South Africa 31% of men and 9% of women smoke at least one cigarette a day.

Fagerstrom said smokers added to healthcare costs and spent less time working.

"They take more time out of their job to smoke and that is also a cost."

He said banning smoking in public places reduced the number of smokers.

"On average 4% of smokers give up [because of the regulations] and those who continue to smoke, smoke less."

The main effect of the legislation, he said, was to "denormalise tobacco culture". (from TimesLive)