BY REBECCA SHEEHAN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM 

Smoking is a dirty and dangerous habit – we all know this, even you smokers out there. To us non-smokers it seems very simple, just quit, but for all you die-hard smokers out there we now know it is a little bit harder than simply going cold turkey.

Last month PLOS ONE published an article that is creating quite a stir within the smoking debate. The article agues, smokers have a poor ability to delay satisfaction despite negative long-term consequences. “In other words,” the authors of the study
wrote in a companion op-ed that appeared in the New York Times, “it’s their poor self control.”

Since the study has been published, doctors and therapists are crying out that the conclusions are too narrow.

“The conclusions that are being drawn on don’t really make sense,” said Chris Kotsen, a certified tobacco treatment specialist, psychologist, and program manager at the tobacco quit center at Steeplechase Cancer Center in Somerville. “It’s more complicated than self control. The brain has been impacted.”

Although the PLOS ONE study is stating poor self-control as the main issue, Michael Steinberg, director of the Rutgers Tobacco Dependence Program, disagrees. Steinberg believes the addictive quality of not only the nicotine but of the thousands of other chemicals should not be overlooked.

“Smoking is a very complicated behavior,” he said in a Star-Ledger report on the matter. “I think the addictive part of tobacco on the brain drives a lot of behavior that defies common sense in the face of knowing how dangerous smoking is.”

Anti-tobacco advocates for years have called on New Jersey to restore funding for smoking cessation programs, in order to save
lives and undoubtedly cut healthcare costs.