Talk:New drug for smoking cessation is under investigation

Please do not refer to smoking as a "habit." It is an addiction! Regularyly playing with one's hair is a habit. Taking the same route home from work on a daily basis is a habit. Cigarettes and other tobacco products contain drugs that keep a person using the product. The body goes through withdrawls that affect a person physically, mentally and emotionally when the drug is leaving the body causing hence,the craving for more drugs. People have serious problems when quitting the drug of tobacco. This does not happen when one quits playing with their hair or taking a different route home.

This information is known from personal experience.
 * As you probably noticed, this article is protected. While I agree it is not wholly accurate to describe smoking as a habit versus an addiction I'll not be changing it. Sorry. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with the previous person's point that smoking is categorically not a habit. It is a drug addiction with exactly the same psychological mechanism as heroin, cocaine or crack addiction. People all over the world refer to drug addictions as "habits" because they involve repetitive drug taking behaviour. But unwittingly these people including you, who so flippantly dismiss the original comment, by describing drug taking as "habit" either in print, radio or on TV, perpetuate the myth that it's akin to biting ones nails! The sooner people in positions of influence and power recognise this essential point, but more importantly correct their use of the term, the better for all those who are addicted or yet to become so. I was addicted to numerous drugs and am now free of all of them thanks in no small measure to understanding this critical point.