Nicotine as a Lifestyle Drug

[elfs]

Have you seen the Nicorette Gum ad with the shark? This one? It's funny in its own right, although maybe a bit gruesome in its suggestiveness.

But the weird thing is, the message I take away from the ad is not just that Nicorette will help you deal with cravings, but that nicotine will wake you up. If I was a smoker, this ad would say "we'll help you quit."

But I'm not a smoker. I don't understand the cravings for nicotine. I even managed to drop from nearly 600mg to now less that 50mg of caffeine a day (and that's mostly from chocolate and iced tea), and even on that I'm tapering off to nothing. To me, a non-user, it seems to saying: "Nicotine is like caffeine. It wakes you up. It makes you more aware and alive. Even if you're not a smoker, maybe Nicorette is for you."

Uh, no. Nicotine, even as a gum, is one of the hardest drugs of all to quit. Not doing that one anytime soon.

Comments

[urox.livejournal.com]

I didn't get the non-smoking message at all. Never have been a smoker either (though I probably got a good dose of second hand growing up).

But now I want iced tea and chocolate. I've got the former...