Was it a stop or a "stop"?

substrate — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:07:16 -0800

How long until the smell of cigarette smoke doesn't appear on breath? I've been dating my girlfriend for almost a year. We're talking about moving in together and I said that the one thing holding me back is her smoking. She concealed her smoking from me when we first started dating because she knew I was a non-smoker, so I don't feel that I'm suddenly deciding she should stop smoking. She agreed to work on stopping smoking and proudly exclaimed that she quit a couple of weeks ago. The problem is that when she sleeps over within a few hours her breath and hair smell of smoke.

I've never smoked and don't even know a lot of smokers let alone people in the process of quitting so I don't know if it just takes a while before the odor works its way out of the nooks and crannies in the nasal cavity.

Do "one shot" stop smoking injections work?

cps — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 05:59:37 -0800

Does anybody have experience with (or knowledge of) "one shot" stop smoking programs such as Welplex or Smart Shot? There's a lot My roommate got a number from a flyer/poster claiming to offer a guaranteed one-visit treatment for smoking. He's been conned before (by some laser light thing) but wants to believe this will work. I'm skeptical and my limited research abilities leave me with the impression it's a scam. But I'm not entirely sure and don't want to steer him away if it's got a decent chance of working.

Here's what I found:

- The treatment apparently consists of an atarax + scopolamine shot, or shots, with some patch/pills followup. There's some educational materials and some light therapy/group support involved as well.

- The sites for various Welplex clinics are all identical, although the names vary a bit -- franchise business? It's a hard sell with unlikely sounding success rates and no offsite links.

- I found a few other sites offering the same treatment. There's the Smart Shot and this scamalicious page. Again, hard sell, things that look like links aren't (no outside links), etc.

- There's a so-called article on some local TV channel site, but that turned out to be of the press release/kickback variety. Smells like more hard selling to me. (sidetrack: is this kind of thing even legal?)

BUT...

- All this said, there is a page of scientific references on the Welplex sites. This is where I get lost. Most of the titles sound irrelevant to me, with the exception of "Bachynsky N. The use of anticholinergic drugs for smoking cessation: a pilot study. Int J Addict. 1986 Jul;21(7):789-805". (This also turns out to be the article cited by the scamalicious page). I googled and found a copy of this and it sounded plausible. But I don't know from scientific journals, and how to find out if this research is legit, whether there's been followups, etc.

So...

Can anybody confirm this is a scam, or alternately, that it does work? I'm trying to keep an open mind, and maybe I'm just too skeptical -- maybe it's a real working product with bad marketers. But I don't know how to follow up on the research, and have been remarkably unsuccessful in finding reports on this stuff by real, live people.

(And if it is a scam, I need to convince my roommate of this before he blows $400+. He's not very educated/scientific, and the "patents", "references", "university studies" and "guaranteed or your money back" sound good to him. Any advice on this would be an appreciated bonus.)

Quitting Smoking

cup — Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:55:09 -0800

If you have ever smoked, what story, event or argument finally convinced you to stop?

Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with stopsmoking

Was it a stop or a "stop"?

Do "one shot" stop smoking injections work?

Quitting Smoking