Nice Work
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence updated guidance for promoting quitting smoking and treating dependence has been welcomed as “a breath of fresh air”
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by Dave Cross
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NICE worked with Public Health England to develop this updated guide. It covers “support to stop smoking for everyone aged 12 and over, and help to reduce people's harm from smoking if they are not ready to stop in one go.”
The document was released today, Tuesday 30 November, and “brings together and updates all NICE's previous guidelines on using tobacco, including smokeless tobacco. It covers nicotine replacement therapy and e-cigarettes to help people stop smoking or reduce their harm from smoking.”
It delivers recommendations on:
- adult-led interventions in schools
- stop-smoking interventions
- support to stop smoking in secondary care services
- adherence and relapse prevention
- identifying pregnant women who smoke and referring them for stop-smoking support
- providing support for women to stop smoking during and after pregnancy
- using medicinally licensed nicotine-containing products
- promoting stop-smoking support
- promoting support for people to stop using smokeless tobacco
- supporting people who do not want, or are not ready, to stop smoking in one go to reduce their harm from smoking
While aimed at health care professionals and policy makers, it also contains information for retailers and members of the public.
Louise Ross said: “[It] is a welcome breath of fresh air. Although conservative and cautious, as NICE guidance has to be, based on evidence rather than testimony or optimism (as my Stop Smoking Service’s vape-launch was in early 2014), this provides a clear message to the rest of the world that here in the UK at least, there is support for the use of vaping to stop smoking.”
She noted that although vaping for recreational purposes is not considered, “of course; that is outside the scope of the guidance”, longer-term nicotine use is addressed, “and that is welcome.”
Touching on the possibility of vapes being able to be prescribed by GPs, Louise continued: “Whether a product ever gets a medicinal license remains to be seen. The barriers are high and the costs even more so. Opinion is divided on whether this helps get more ‘respectability’ for the category, but it cannot be denied that being able to prescribe to young smokers, or those in hospital, could be a benefit.”
NICE’s advice to policy makers is clear:
- Smoking is highly addictive mainly because it delivers nicotine very quickly to the brain and this makes stopping smoking difficult
- Most smoking-related health problems are caused by other components in tobacco smoke, not by the nicotine
- Nicotine levels in medicinally licensed nicotine-containing products are much lower than in tobacco, and the way these products deliver nicotine makes them less addictive than smoking
The full document is obtainable in the link below.
References:
- Tobacco: preventing uptake, promoting quitting and treating dependence - https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng209/resources/tobacco-preventing-uptake-promoting-quitting-and-treating-dependence-pdf-66143723132869
- New Nicotine Alliance - https://nnalliance.org/
Photo Credit:
Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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