Guest opinion: State and feds smother idea to help smokers quit

More than one in 10 Americans still smoke, even though over half want to stop but can’t.  That’s regrettable because smoking brings extremely steep costs; the CDC estimates that it causes 46% of all cancer deaths, and that tobacco-related health problems cost Medicare and Medicaid over $108 billion each year.

Despite these staggering costs, government agencies seem unwilling to let us help smokers to stop.

Quitting is difficult for three separate reasons: nicotine addiction, the oral habit and deeply-ingrained routines.  Nonsmokers think nicotine is the hardest of the three, but that’s not true. Nicotine has a short half-life; 50% of the nicotine in a smoker’s body is gone within two hours of their last cigarette, and the other 50% is completely flushed out after three to five days of not smoking, so it takes only five days to overcome nicotine addiction. 

The other two hurdles are the real challenges; a person smoking the national average of 12 cigarettes per day performs over 40,000 identical hand-to-mouth motions each year, creating a strong oral habit. Similarly, smokers’ routines (time for a cigarette break) become automatic.

Despite many attempts to quit, I smoked for 40 years until trying a combination of oral substitutes like straws, along with the journal method.  Ecstatic after finally kicking the habit, I then started thinking about helping other smokers who wanted to quit.  

Instead of using straws, I imagined a cigarette replica which appeared to light up when inhaled, thus helping smokers to satisfy their oral and habituation needs. After approaching several micro-electronic companies, I found one that was intrigued by the challenge and they created an inexpensive replica that looks exactly like a cigarette and does appear to light up when inhaled.  

We then contacted the national quit-smoking agency, emphasizing that if our aid helped only 1% of smokers to stop, it would save taxpayers more than $1 billion each year (1% of $108 billion).  

Remarkably, we received no reply whatsoever to our first several approaches, and then were dismissed with the news that FDA approval would be needed before smokers could use our aid. Not, we noted, “What a good idea, let’s work together and get FDA approval” but, “Go away, we’re not interested in new concepts.”

That was early 2024.  Since then, our multiple attempts to get FDA approval have either been ignored or met with instructions to go through a seemingly endless maze of departments. Most recently, we were told that if we paid an application fee of $7,301 along with an annual registration fee of $9,280, they would decide whether our aid is a medical device or a low risk ceneral wellness product.   We’ve repeatedly asked what those classifications would then mean, but no reply has ever been received.

Montana state agencies were equally unreceptive; one memorable lack of enthusiasm was provided by Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program in Helena. Their directory lists nine people with impressive titles, but they rarely answer emails or voicemails and aren’t in their offices after 3:30 p.m. We can only presume they have meetings all day while their assistants mail out Nicoderm patches and gums, which only reinforce nicotine dependence.

We also discovered that Montana receives about $25 million annually from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with tobacco companies, for “health costs caused by treating smoking-related illnesses.”  

Montana voters then approved Amendment 35, dedicating 40% of those payments to a trust fund, with 90% of the interest earmarked “to provide grants to local organizations working on tobacco prevention programs.”  

However, when we contacted the Master Settlement Agreement office in Helena to apply for a grant so our aid could be distributed nationwide (and provide additional employment and income for our state), the door was practically slammed in our face.  

Despite repeated requests, we still don’t know where that 40% is going (in 2024, NPR reported that Montana spends only 6% of our tobacco settlement funds on prevention programs.)  

A similar complete lack of interest was also shown by our politicians and state Commerce Department.

So, two years later, nothing has changed.  Smoking still causes nearly half of all cancer deaths, and Medicare and Medicaid continue to spend $108 billion each year treating tobacco-related illnesses.

We’re stunned that government agencies won’t allow smokers to use a simple, low-cost tool that could help thousands to quit, but we’ve run out of options. If anyone has any ideas or would like information about the journal method, please contact [email protected].

Colin Sellwood lives in Columbia Falls.