How To Quit Smoking

Watching Jenny McCarthy try to sell me e-cigarettes, I couldn’t help but reflect on my experiences undergoing chemotherapy treatment last year.

As someone who’s worked in advertising, I could see what they’re selling. Technically, they want you to buy Blu eCigs, brought to you by Lorillard Tobacco, makers of Newport, Kent, and True. An electronic cigarette means no unsightly ash or burns on McCarthy’s white sofa. “Not only did I feel better about myself, I felt the freedom to have a cigarette without the guilt,” she tells us. She adds her eCigs have been “an absolute savior for me,” from which we may surmise electronic cigarettes are equivalent to Christ. Potential female consumers get to imagine living in McCarthy’s picture-perfect set which, she assures us, doesn’t reek of Marlboros. Potential male consumers get to enjoy the former Playboy Playmate’s exposed cleavage and the moment at which she inserts the charger into her mouth.

And e-cigarette advertising, which isn’t as tightly regulated as cigarette advertising, is working. By year’s end, the New York Times notes, e-cigarette sales are expected to hit $1.7 billion:

The Blu eCigs brand — which recently added the actress Jenny McCarthy to its roster of star endorsers, joining the actor Stephen Dorff — spent $12.4 million on ads in major media for the first quarter of this year compared with $992,000 in the same period a year ago, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP. And ad spending in a category that Kantar Media calls smoking materials and accessories, which includes products like pipes and lighters in addition to e-cigarettes, has skyrocketed: from $2.7 million in 2010 to $7.2 million in 2011 to $20.8 million last year.

The tobacco industry would like you to believe electronic cigarettes, which emit a vaporized form of nicotine, are a less toxic alternative to regular cigarettes. The FDA would like to remind you that a lack of comprehensive studies means you don’t know the effects of what you’re inhaling every time you puff on one. A recent study out of France found “carcinogenic molecules in a significant amount” in the e-cigarettes they tested. To point out that more research is needed would be an understatement.

No matter! The electronic cigarette industry is moving forward, full steam ahead. Napster founder and Mark Zuckerberg buddy Sean Parker has invested millions in NJOY, another e-cigarette brand. Meanwhile, the FDA is considering banning online sales of e-cigarettes in an attempt to curb sales to minors.

Of course, not all e-cigarette makers are using white sofas and sex to hawk their products. A new commercial from Reynolds American, the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S., which makes Camel, American Spirit, and Winston, among other brands, suggests those who smoke its Vuse e-cigarettes are, in doing so, transporting themselves into the future. NJOY takes a randier route with Courtney Love in the role of (warning: graphic language) foul-mouthed smoker.

As McCarthy took another drag, I was drawn back to thoughts of last spring, when I spent three months undergoing chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. What caused my cancer? Who knows. That’s one thing about a breast cancer diagnosis: They can’t tell you why you got it. I smoked years ago, but I’d long since quit. Still, now that I’d been diagnosed with cancer, the thought that I had ever smoked, or done any number of a constellation of things that had quite possibly negatively impacted my health, made me sick to my stomach.

Chemotherapy, as it worked to heal me, stripped me to the bone. I clogged the sink repeatedly as I went bald, leaving my husband to dislodge another clump of my hair from the drain. My face turned into a pale moon from the steroids. The notorious “chemo fog” rendered my mental abilities on a par with that of a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal. The fatigue forced me to hold on for dear life to the banister as I walked on buckling legs down the stairs. The chemical cocktail I was absorbing was undeniably toxic, its intention to kill the bad stuff inside me so the rest of me would survive. As it did so, my fingernails and toenails turned black and some fell off, to my dismay. Every time I blew my nose, I pulled away the tissue to find it spattered with blood. For several months, I sported a chemo port in my chest. In the chemo room, I pulled back my shirt so they could insert the needle into the hole that led to the port. Over time, the hole failed to heal, the skin around it slowly turning black. In the end, the treatment worked. I’ve been cancer-free since January. All that’s left is a series of scars and one unanswerable question: Will it come back?

On a late afternoon during my treatment, I got out of my car in a drugstore parking lot. I was bald by that point, and while I refused to wear a wig, occasionally I wore a baseball cap. I walked past a young woman and a young man sitting on a curb in the lot, smoking cigarettes. I thought about pulling off my hat and telling them cheerily, “You really should quit smoking!” I didn’t, but I wish I had.

Article Credit: http://www.forbes.com

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