As schoolwork intensifies and finals approach, many students are likely to use cigarettes as self-medication to deal with high levels of stress. This can lead to nicotine addiction--a multifaceted and dangerous dependence that is difficult to shake on one's own.
This is why the American Cancer Society is holding the Great American Smokeout, devoting Nov. 20 to helping people quit smoking. University of Kansas campus health workers and volunteers will have a booth in Anschutz Library from 10 am to 2 pm that day, providing resources and support for people trying to quit.
To effectively help smokers quit, both volunteers and smokers must first try to understand the science of addiction.
With every cigarette smoked, nicotine and at least 60 other carcinogens enter the bloodstream through the lungs. Nicotine is the chemical in tobacco that makes it addictive. It crosses from the bloodstream into the brain and latches onto nicotinic receptors on the outside of brain cells.
"When the drug binds to the receptor, it starts a cascade of events," said Timothy Bredehoft, a pharmacist at Medical Arts Pharmacy, 346 Maine St. "It releases neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin that affect the way we think."
Dopamine and serotonin are the reason for the relaxing effect of cigarette smoking. Dopamine makes people talkative and excitable, while serotonin causes a sense of well-being, especially when one has just started smoking. As time goes by, though, the body creates more receptors and it is harder to achieve the same effect.
Bredehoft said Chantix, a drug released two years ago by Pfizer Chemicals, is the most effective method he has seen to help people quit smoking. The drug imitates the action of nicotine, while disabling the receptors' ability to affect the brain. However, if the drug is not taken twice a day, every day, for three months, it will
not be effective.
"That's the biggest problem I've seen," he said. "They'll go for two or three weeks on it, and then stop for just a day, and bam! The addiction is back and they start smoking again."
Cigarette smoking is dangerous and addictive regardless of age, and the earlier one starts smoking, the harder it is to quit later on. This is because the chemical addiction to nicotine never lowers... it only intensifies with each cigarette. For this reason, it is important to quit as soon as possible.
"I once did dispense Chantix to a 14-year-old," said Marissa Rozman, a third-year graduate student working at Medical Arts Pharmacy. "I was shocked."
Overall cigarette use has dropped over the last 20 years and laws banning public smoking have passed in Lawrence and elsewhere. According to the Center for Disease Control, 21 percent of US adults (45.3 million people) are current cigarette smokers, and 70 percent report wanting to quit completely. Nonetheless, health service professionals like Aynsley Anderson, who teaches a class at Lawrence Memorial Hospital to help smokers quit, have trouble getting smokers to attend.
"I teach the class every year, and not many people usually come to it." she said. "How do you get a group of adults interested in a class about how to quit cigarettes?"
Ken Sarber, peer health educator at Watkins Health Center, said he found that psychological dependence on nicotine is actually more powerful than the chemical addiction. He coaches smokers through a six-week, one-on-one counseling program called KanUquit.
"I tell people, 'You have to be ready to quit,'" he said. "It's not something that anyone can push on you, least of all your parents."
He said the first priority when helping someone quit is to find their smoking triggers--habits and routines that usually accompany smoking. People often smoke while they are driving, or drinking coffee in the morning, or during break-time at work.
Once these triggers have been identified, he said, it is important to address them slowly and deliberately. "You can't change too many things at once," he said. "You have to convince your mind, find ways to get around these triggers, and give yourself different things to do."
Ken Sarber said that after withdrawal symptoms end, the smell of smoke becomes no longer appealing. Until then, he said, it is a matter of having the strength of mind to refuse the body's cravings.
The goal of the Smokeout on Nov. 20, he said, is to help give people the confidence to make their own decision. Once they have that, the rest is up to them.
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