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Excerpts from: Kicking The Nicotine Habit Butting Out Can Lead To Other Addictions  Nicorette Gum Can Become A Habit Sales Up 500 Percent Over Eight Years

By  CBS 2 [03/28/01]

(NEW YORK) (WCBS)
Mindful that lung cancer is the nation's No. 1 one cancer killer, Americans have become obsessed with kicking the smoking
habit, spending more than $800 million a year on products ranging from patches to pills to gum.

Sales of smoking cessation gum alone have increased 500 percent in the past eight years.

But like cigarettes, the gum contains nerve-calming nicotine and few smokers realize the consequences: getting addicted to the
gum.

Jennifer Drake never imagined her New Year's resolution to quit smoking would turn into another addiction.

"I went out and I bought a box of Nicorette, my first box, and it's been my friend ever since," she says.

That was four years ago and Jennifer is still hooked on the over-the-counter gum.

"It's as good as having a cigarette when you finally have one because you still get that little nicotine rush," she says. "Instead of
getting a lung rush, you get a slow burn down the back of your throat."

"Nicotine is more addictive than heroin," says Dr. Elliot Wineburg, the director of the New York Stop Smoking Medical Center
at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Dr. Wineburg says that initially, the gum satisfies a smoker's need for nicotine. Users are supposed to be gradually weaned off
the gum within three months as cravings subside.

But studies show up to 10 percent of smokers continue chewing for a year or more and up to 2 percent chomp away for
several years, if not indefinitely.

"Every box I buy is the last box," Drake says. "And then what happens is when I run out and if I really mean it, and I don't buy
another box, then I smoke."

Experts say lighting up again is the worst thing you can do but it's easy to give in.

The gum can cost double the amount of cigarettes and there's the lingering misconception that the gum is as dangerous as
smoking itself.

"Nobody has ever died of nicotine gum, nobody," Dr. Wineburg says.

Dr. Wineburg says the sugarless gum is perfectly safe, containing none of the carbon monoxide, cyanide and other organic
chemicals found in cigarettes that can cause cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.

"I'd give someone who just had a heart attack nicotine gum, if he's going to go out and buy cigarettes because the cigarettes will
really polish him off," he says.

It's tough to quit chewing for a number of reasons, such as improper dosage: many smokers buy the gum without consulting their
doctor and others chew the gum so rapidly, it prevents the nicotine from being absorbed gradually.

"You don't chew [it] like Wrigley's Spearmint and swallow quickly and get rid of it in five minutes," Dr. Wineburg explains.
"You let it sort of hang around, take an occasional jaw and then let the nicotine leak out into the saliva."