Tobacco.org

I QUIT! 

It's like a voice in the back of my head insisting that I get a smoke and if I don't, the voice just nags until I give in," Semper shared.

Semper is not alone. In fact, according to Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Health Senator Wesley George, there are over 200,000 smokers in Trinidad and Tobago. George shared the figures during his speech on the Tobacco Control Bill at the Association of Psychiatrists of Trinidad and Tobago's recent symposium at the Kapok Hotel, the theme of which was "The Social ills of Cigarette Smoking".

Statistics provided at the symposium showed that of the 1.22 billion smokers worldwide, 1 billion of these are in developing countries. Smoking is on the decline in developed countries such as the US but on the increase in the developing countries. Trinidad and Tobago has the fourth highest rate of smokers amongst secondary school children between the ages of 13 and 15 years. . . .

But the new weapon in the fight against smoking is the drug Champix (Varenicline). This has promising results and compared to Zyban, 44 per cent of smokers quit by the end of 3 months as compared to 30 per cent with Zyban.

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