Tobacco.org

Traveling hypnotist’s claims don’t add up, authorities say 

For the last week, full-page ads in the Daily News and the Glasgow Daily Times have announced that Dr. Mark Webb will offer a hypnosis seminar in Bowling Green tonight that is “110% guaranteed” to make smokers stop, for just $60 with a $10 discount for paying with cash. . . But the ads promise things that, according to Indiana authorities, Ohio courts and Webb’s own office, just aren’t true. . .

The ad states that the seminar is presented by the “National Institute of Hypnosis,” with a Charlestown, Ind., address. According to the secretary who answered at the phone number given for the institute, Webb won’t even be appearing in Bowling Green. He’s currently in Phoenix. . .

After the ad first ran, the Kentucky Board of Chiropractic Examiners sent Webb a cease-and-desist letter Jan. 14, noting that he holds a Kentucky Non-Resident Chiropractic License, but that license is not valid for active practice in Kentucky. It also says that his advertisement of “specializing in smoking cessation” is not a recognized chiropractic specialty in Kentucky.

In Ohio, however, Kahl turns up in court records. In 1991, he claimed in various newspaper ads that his hypnotism routine would help people stop smoking, with an extremely high success rate. (The rate cited in his local ad is “at least 95%.”) A Hamilton County court found that Kahl was unable to substantiate those claims with reasonable clinical evidence, and issued a consent judgment against him.

Jump to full article »