Israeli smokers say no thanks to free anti-addiction drugs

No grim warnings about how smoking is hazardous to your health will stop a smoker who truly loves his cigarettes. He will keep smoking all the way to the hospice. Nor will he care that he smells like an ashtray, or that he cannot climb two flights of stairs without feeling exhausted. Dedicated smokers do not even care that smoking causes impotence.

Most have tried to quit in the past, but failed. Then they trot out the tired excuses: "peer pressure," "a tough day at the office," "I can quit whenever I please." But deep down, they know they are addicted to a product that contains more than 40 different carcinogens.

Thus Wednesday's decision by the health basket committee - which determines which products will be covered by the national health insurance plan - to include two medicines that are supposed to help people stop smoking aroused little interest among smokers.

In Ashdod's city square, where smokers congregate, there was no sign of a rush to the pharmacy to buy the medicines, Zyban and Champix. Nor did any say they intend to do so in the future.

"A cigarette is like a woman," explained Tamaz Raakobuglo, 28, between puffs. "A cigarette is even more than a woman. You're tied to your cigarette, you can't get free of it. You get used to the taste and you can't live without it."

He said he tried to quit about a month ago, but "broke after a few days. I was longing for the taste of a cigarette."

His friend, Wachteng Ben Moshe, 26, also said he wants to quit - but could not set a timetable. All his previous attempts have ended in failure, he said, because smoking is an integral part of his social life.

"I meet with friends, everyone takes out his cigarettes and smokes, and I want to, too," he explained.

But he insisted that he could quit anytime. "It's all in your head. It's all a matter of choice. Meanwhile, I'm young, so I allow myself."

At Shai Hovel's kiosk on the square, the shelves are laden with more than 50 kinds of cigarettes. He takes them down for customers hundreds of times a day.

He himself has smoked since the age of 13. Now 27, he smokes two packs a day. He tried to quit once and failed; now, he does not even want to hear the word "quit."

"Life in this country is hard," he argued. "Besides, I like to smoke. There's a great deal of pleasure in it. For instance, I get up in the morning and I can't imagine drinking my coffee without a cigarette. A good meal without a cigarette at the end isn't a meal at all. And between us, there's also nothing like a cigarette after sex. So why quit?"

Fear of change

One of Hovel's customers, age 63, said he is afraid to quit because "my entire image would change." He does not want to hear about the new medications he can now buy for a few shekels - and which, if successful, would save him several hundred shekels a month, thousands of shekels a year, in cigarette purchases. Friends have done the math for him many times in the past, but neither their calculations nor the size of his overdraft have convinced him.

"I haven't tried to quit and I won't try, because if I succeeded, who knows what kind of disease I'd suddenly come down with?" he declared. "I'd get fat. I'd change my image."

Even on the coldest, rainiest nights, he added, he goes out onto the balcony to smoke, in his heavy coat and wool cap, "Because I don't want to suffocate my wife and children."

But suddenly, he changed his tune, saying he wished "all the cigarettes in the world would go up in flames." Hovel was upset.

"Hello, that's my livelihood!" he exclaimed. "Heaven forbid. If people stopped smoking, how would I earn a living? From nuts?"

At Robert Papiashvilli's pharmacy, across the square from Hovel's kiosk, there is no sign of people flocking in for drugs to help them quit. In addition to the drugs approved yesterday, Papiashvilli stocks a variety of other anti-smoking aids, from chewing gum to inhalers. And he knows which of his customers are smokers, because he can smell it.

"But there's no enthusiasm," he said. "I actually ask them if they want something to [help them] quit or reduce smoking, and they all say they can quit on their own, that it's all in your mind. Or else they say that they enjoy it."