Proving the Useless

A recent article in a journal called Nature Communications, written by twenty-eight authors (if I did not miscount) who are mainly from America, is a wonderful example of a tremendous research effort to prove the useless. The title is: ‘Rare coding variants in CHRNB3 associate with reduced daily cigarette smoking across ancestries.’ Well, fancy that.

It’s a genetic study, full of specialised jargon, of 150,000 Mexican people, wherein we learn, for example, that ‘There are at least nine nAChR subunit types (α2–7, β2–4) known to be expressed in the human brain…some of the strongest associations include loci 15q25.1 containing CHRNA5, CHRNA3 and CHRNB4, 8p11.21 containing CHRNB3 and CHRNA6 [but] the phenotypic consequences of loss or gain of these subunits on smoking behaviour in humans are poorly understood.’ Oh dear.

The paper starts with a truism: ‘Despite its decline in recent years, cigarette smoking continues to be one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.’ The question, therefore, is what can be done about this appalling situation? It continues with a dismal statement: ‘Limited progress has been made in the past two decades in identifying new drugs for smoking addiction.’ On dear, again. But hang on a minute! Drugs for smoking addiction?

Now let us suppose, just suppose, that a drug has been discovered or synthetised, a magic pill, that a poor addicted smoker (is there any other kind?) has only to take and he or she will be transformed into a non-smoker again. Mission accomplished?

Unfortunately, such an imaginary scenario overlooks one important matter: the magic pill will only be of potential use to those smokers who choose to take it. But if you talk to real people who smoke, it will soon become clear that most smokers don’t want to stop – that’s why they smoke.

Furthermore, it does not seem to be generally recognised that, although the urge to smoke may be hard to resist, smoking is a voluntary activity. Therefore, if a smoker wishes to return to the happy state of being a non-smoker, all he or she has to do is to stop smoking. Why should this be so difficult? It isn’t – if you ago about it the right way.

People are not born smokers, and smoking is not an illness that comes unbidden and unwanted. It results from a misguided decision, usually in the teen years, to try smoking. The trouble is that around two-thirds of these young people then go on to become regular smokers. And the reason this happens is not because smoking provides some real pleasure or benefit – there is none – but because they find themselves unable to stop. They are in the situation where, even though they may not admit it to themselves, they’re caught in a trap based on a false belief. It goes like this: ‘I can’t stop smoking, and therefore I don’t want to stop.’

But why do they start the idiotic behaviour of smoking in the first place? The answer is because they can. And the reason for this, obviously, is that cigarettes are on largely unrestricted sale in every supermarket and corner shop throughout the land. Therefore, the way to solve the problem is not by seeking a magic pill which most smokers wouldn’t want to take; it’s for cigarettes and all tobacco products to be unavailable by governments enacting legislation to abolish their manufacture and sale. Note I said abolish, not prohibit.

To achieve this aim, it needs to be understood that cigarettes are not a normal consumer product and therefore should not be included in the Consumer Price Index. Nicotine (the main chemical ingredient in tobacco smoke) is not a recreational drug, like alcohol. Smoking is legalized drug addiction and should be seen as such. With alcohol, unless you are an alcoholic, which most people are not, you can drink as and when you please, circumstances permitting, and it is unlikely to do you any harm. The vast majority of smokers, on the other hand, suffer from an apparently irresistible urge to smoke repeatedly every day for years on end. This is abnormal behaviour. To change your behaviour, therefore, requires a conscious decision – not poisoning your brain with a drug.

Text © Gabriel Symonds