Smoking is a remediable Sickness
Published on August 24, 2009 4:46 AM
Human character differs very much. For example, some people have willpower some not. Even a recent survey found more than 55 percent of Chinese smokers said that they wanted to quit for health reasons, while nearly 70 percent said that whether or not someone can quit successfully is determined completely by his/her force of will and persistence.
But Wang Chen, president-elect of the Chinese Thoracic Society, said: "That concept, held by the majority of people, is wrong," said Wang, citing scientific research that showed less than 3 percent of cigarettes smokers can stop smoking for more than one year without treatment.
More than 350 million Chinese smokers have no idea that tobacco addiction is a disease which needs medical treatment to quit, medical experts said. Because they think that smoking is just bad habit, and that’s why few smokers turn to doctors for help.
In 1996 in China was opened the first smoking cessation clinic at the Chaoyang Hospital. Doctors at the hospital handle more than 50 patients daily. The situation for the rest of China's 100 or so clinics specializing in treating smoking is even worse, said Xiao Dan, professor of the WHO Collaborating Center for Tobacco or Health. Awareness of treatments for tobacco addiction is still low in China, the world's biggest cigarette producer and consumer. In comparison, it has long been considered and as a chronic disease in most developed countries.
For example, in Japan, the government began to wrapper the medical cost for smoking cessation three years ago, a move which supports smokers who want to quit seeking professional help. Today the number of smoking cessation clinics has increased from 300 to 8,000, said scientists.
A new survey by the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that most of the 3,650 doctors sampled knew little about smoking cessation treatment and the drugs involved. In spite of ameliorated awareness among doctors in the last few years, China still has fewer than 1,000 qualified smoking cessation doctors, Xiao added.
Every treatment session, including consultation, lasts 40 minutes, said Xiao, adding the cost of drugs varies from several hundred to several thousand yuan. Scientists concluded that smoking is a behavior that is a consequence of nicotine addiction.
