Smoking/Cessation

Smoking Reduction May Lead To Unexpected Quitting
"Cutting back is approved as a method of quitting in several European countries, but not in the United States," said lead author John Hughes, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. "Our review contradicts the commonly held belief that quitting requires stopping abruptly and provides evidence that smokers can quit successfully by reducing the amount of cigarettes smoked." --Medical News Today, 12 Dec. 2006[]

More smoking dosage reduction options (beyond merely fewer cigarettes!)
The following ideas for a syllabus of smoking cessation, going beyond the parameters of Hughes et al.[] ("reduction in the amount of cigarettes smoked"), will start by  eliminating the cigarette altogether, and substitute any of several dosage reduction options including the $$ vaporizer, the $$ e-cigarette or portable vaporizer, etc.

1. Initially, more cheaply, try a screened single-vapetoke utensil, or flexible-drawtube one-hitter, which offers a uniform 25-mg. serving size, replacing the hot-burning-overdose-monoxide 700-mg-per-lightup commercial cigarette (or, in India, 450-mg beedi)! This requires that the user learn an easy vape-instead-of-smoke procedure which reforms the inhalation process-- away from hasty huff-puff toward smooth and slow.

Typewriter compliant diagram: conversion of conventional hotburning bigbowl tobacco pipe (load: 1-2 grams) into #40-screened single-toke one-hitter (load: 25 mg.)

(4x enlarged)

1/4" (6.3-mm.) ,6-mm. or 5.5-mm.(7/32") i.d.                   __________ <-> __________ /         \           /  xxx=    \ /          |x         x| cupshaped \ ________ /           |x         x|<-- screen  \ ________ /       \|            |x         x| (#40 wire) |/        \ |        |             \xxxxxxxxx/             |         | |        |             |         |    wood     |         | |        |<--tight fit |         |    bead,    |         | |        |             |         |   branch    |         | |        |             |         |   segment,  |         | |        |             |         |     etc.    |         | |        \             |         |             /         |       |         |\            |         |            /|         |       |         | \___________/         \___________/ |         |       |         |                                     |         |       |         |                                     |         |       |         |                                     |         |       |         |                                     |         |       |         |       Vacant space helps cool       |         | |        |       smoke before it reaches       |         | |        |       point of inhalement           |          \__________ |        |                                     |       |         \                                     \_____________________       \          \        \          \                                         original pipe stem--> \         \                                        plus flexible extension drawtube \         \_______________________________________________________           \            \________________________________________________________________

2. Exploring different types of tobacco one toke at a time, thus breaking the single-brand $lave Loyalty habit! Bum one cigarette off someone, empty the contents into a canister labeled with the name of that brand, and arrange it into a dividered box with the rest of your collection. Or continue with the favorite type within a dosage limitation such as ten 25-mg. single tokes per day (total 250mg. = slightly more than one third of one present-day "normal" 700-mg commercial cigarette).

If Hughes et al. are correct about a reduced number of (700-mg.)cigarettes, the above restricted number (say, ten) of reduced-dosage tokes (25 mg. each) may result in a rising percentage of smokers who eventually "forget to smoke any more". (Later they may say they got caught up in the real life they had been missing while on chainsmoke regimen.) Those who continue "smoking" will do so with major risk-reduction, by partial if not total conversion to monoxide-free vaporizing (vape pens, plug-in vaporizers, one-hitters).

History of smoking: not the tobacco, the cigarette is the problem

 * Relevance to Wikiversity presentation: 
 * (a) I think everyone should investigate this history, understanding how we got into the 6,000,000-a-year fix will help us get out of it;
 * (b) any reader-- including you-- might with luck figure out which historic ad campaign GOT YOU HOOKED in your time, and reviewing that may help you kick the habit now!

For centuries, partly because tobacco was expensive, smoking pipes usually had a long stem and a narrow bowl (crater) in which it was possible to heat or burn small amounts of tobacco at a comparatively low temperature by sucking more slowly than on a present-day cigarette. Tobaccos were rare, expensive, strong-tasting and harsh compared to modern "cured" doctored "mild" cigarette tobacco designed for massive inhaling-- in past ages most users either didn't inhale or inhaled very little as shown by the small size of the pipes.

Technology first, then marketing opportunists
In the late 19th century cigarette-rolling machines were developed (replacing hand-rolling sweatshop laborers, like Carmen in the opera), and marketers discovered they could sell much more tobacco by attracting customers to the heavily advertised "sanitation", "convenience", "mildness" etc. of machine-rolled paper tubes ("untouched by human hands") with a heavy load of specially pre-toasted mild tobaccos inside, of which one could inhale large overdoses without coughing, and get a large intake of nicotine quickly, right into the bloodstream.

Instead of learning a more sophisticated art of sucking continuously very slow, possibly for 5-15 seconds (such as hatha yoga/pranayama breathing), youngsters (through picture ads, movies, etc. and filtered down through imitation within peer groups) were taught to suck hard for a short time (a one-second "puff", a 2-second "pull", a 3-4 second "drag" or a longer "bogart") from a device (the cigarette) which is designed to burn hot enough to keep burning and be ready, without re-lighting, for several minutes of up to ten further "puffs". Particularly strong heroic men were supposed to be able to "drag" without flinching-- making the material burn even hotter. Abusing oneself ostentatiously (like by breathing fire) relieved social anxieties by showing others, especially bullies, that one was fearless and capable of inflicting punishment (either on oneself or, by implication, on others). This was and remains relevant at tough urban schools where bullies are looking for any excuse to pick on you and you must prove yourself to be as "tough" as they are.

20th C.: 200 million
Besides the social benefit of exhibiting brave self-punishment, there is also a magic "pleasure"-- (= bloodsugar)-- the nicotine causes a temporary rise in your blood glucose level, even quicker than candy! (Temporary: an hour later you'll crave another one.) This "temporary" pleasure lured the customers on to inhale massive amounts of carbon monoxide (CO), PAH's, ammonia, tars etc. By the mid-20th century research began to show catastrophic death increases, but by that time it was too late to head off a possible 200 million human fatalities, the greatest genocide (so far) in the history of the human race. Individuals in India or China who began age 15 in 1965 are dying in their 60's now.

21st C.: 1 BIL?
The World Health Organization (May 30, 2011) estimates the current yearly cigarette death toll at 6,000,000 and predicts in a generation it could rise to 10 million (approaching a BILLION per century) as the wave of Third World teenagers who began to have enough money in the 70's and 80's to buy overdoses and get hooked will be dying off.

Eliminate SSS; SHS not so bad

 * Q.-- How to reconcile above allegations with scientific evidence that shows small amounts of second-hand smoke detrimental to non-smokers in the vicinity of smokers?  citations needed  How do the suggested reduced doses above compare to dose ingested via second hand smoke?


 * Thanks, it was published in the 1970's that "side-stream" smoke(SSS)-- the part that rises directly off the tip of a cigarette, NOT the same as "second-hand" smoke (SHS)-- contains 5 times as much carbon monoxide (the no. 1 cardiovascular toxin), 5 times as much sulfur dioxide, 30 times as much ammonia etc. etc. as "main-stream"(MSS) (the part inhaled directly from the device).


 * Eliminating the cigarette format (and all other overdose combustion smoking methods that produce more smoke than the smoker inhales, such as a big wide pipe) and substituting a utensil with narrow (1/4 inch or 6.0 or 5.5 mm i.d.) enclosed screened crater (bowl) in which only a small amount (25 mg) of herb can be loaded at a time, just enough for the user to inhale in one take ("toke") and no more, eliminates the "SSS" problem. Then, it turns out, true "second-hand" smoke (SHS), that part which has been in and out through a smoker's lungs, actually contains the LEAST carbon monoxide, for his/her lungs have somewhat "purified" that smoke and made it less bad for bystanders than either the SSS or the MSS.  Substitute a vaporizer for combustion smoking, or learn how to vaporize with a one-hitter, eliminating all SSS.


 * (Taboo has made it difficult for modern humans to admit to themselves that in every crowded ballroom, church, courtroom or auditorium they routinely rebreathe expired breath from other humans-- largely harmlessly of course. They look for ways to either ignore or disparage such breath-- such as confusing "side-stream" with "second-hand" smoke and ignoring the vital biomedical distinction between the two!  As soon as they "discover"-- i.e. admit the latter, there might be prompt widespread agreement on the virtues of a single-toke utensil which does eliminate Side-Stream but not necessary the less harmful Second-Hand.  And if users VAPE instead of "smoke", even their PBE-- personal breath effluent-- is much more harmless.

The 3 fractions, proposed clarification

 * MSS = Mainstream Smoke - the part inhaled into mouth through cigarette-filter-end or pipestem


 * SSS = Sidestream Smoke - the part which, being lighter than ambient air, rises initially off the tip of a cigarette-- especially from a cigarette or pipe just after a smoker has finished puffing on it and it is burning particularly hot. The cigarette is designed to offer continued burning and "convenient" readiness for the next puff any time you want it, but only if you bring the temperature up to nearly 700C/1292F on each puff!  Right after you finish such a mega-puff is when most of the "sidestream smoke" is released.  (Admittedly this term confuses some persons because the smoke rises directly up and does not leave the cigarette in a sideways direction except due to wind.)


 * SHS = Second-hand Smoke - the part which has been breathed in and breathed out by the smoker; generally least harmful but ignorantly feared most by victims.

Cigarette advertising history, or there's a sucker started every second
An overwhelming barrage of trillion dollar advertising has been the key to recent genocidal "success" of the tobacco industry. Surplus profit from overdose addicts was recycled into massively presenting seductive ads to create new addicts (ad + diction = addiction, get it?).


 * In 1913, with the introduction of the Camel (Kill-'em-all, get it?) brand, U. S. cigarette makers launched an unprecedented advertising onslought. One source has alleged that the U.S. cigarette market doubled between 1913 and 1918.  Oh, yes, something else happened between 1914 and 1918-- a war or something.  Well, cigarettes were promoted as more convenient for soldiers in the trench worried about losing their pipe, right?   Enabled the munition moguls to recruit more soldiers easily and get a war started.  Victorious  General Pershing praised "tobacco" as the nation's number one soldier, or something like that.  Nicotine helped soldiers stay awake during the endlessly boring guard duty (watching for enemies to shoot dead) by paralyzing the sleep process, and focus their mind (on spying, aiming the gun, killing etc.).  Sound like a modern watchman or bureaucrat?


 * The famous Eleanor Roosevelt, whose husband (also a cigarette smoker, died age 63) was then U. S. Undersecretary of the Navy, served as one of the kind ladies who appeared in hospitals providing free cigarettes to wounded Navy boys in 1918. (See Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 1972.)


 * In WWII every US soldier got C-Rations (for Cigarette, right?)-- those who didn't $moke presumably could afford to buy more whoretime? Got some French women hooked prior to childbearing years, today France is still 33% addicted while US has declined to 15%.

Show biz showed kids how to smoke

 * When Frank Sinatra stepped out to sing, "Light Up a Lucky, It's Light-Up Time" and pre-programmed audiences of pubescent girls screamed on cue, pubescent boys listening to the radio learned the "lesson" that girls will respond to men who "light up" a $moke.


 * Ronald Reagan earned future campaign money in 1937 (a picture postcard says, "Yours for Kentucky Club, (signed) Dutch Reagan"), 1943-- a magazine-page picture ad says, "Chesterfield is My Cigarette, (signed) Ronald Reagan", another says, "I'm giving my friends Chesterfield for Christmas this year" etc., even though Reagan was personally a non-smoker (See Life Magazine, Dec. 1980). He took the money, used it to run for office, gave us the "Just Say No" drug policy cracking down on cannabis.


 * Such recruitment, slowed in the US, has accelerated in Asia-- a survey showed 89% of movies made in India (2004-5) contained depictions of tobacco use, over 70% of it by the leading stars of the picture. (The India Ministry of HealthMinistry_of_Health_and_Family_Welfare_(India)Indian_health_ministry], publicly embarrassed, has since promised to take action against such abuse.)

What's behind the anti-cannabis laws?
As President, Reagan promoted the War on Drugs, really a War Against Cannabis-- an alternative herb which can substitute for tobacco. By 2007 over 872,000 Americans were arrested for cannabis "violations" in a single year, with an estimated $20 billions of dollars for all this arresting and processing law-enforcement function amply covered by over $36 billion (as complained-- or bragged?-- on an R. J. Reynolds website) collected by the selfsame government entities in the form of tobacco excise taxes, license fees, etc., not to mention campaign contributions primarily to the Republican Party, its leaders (such as Boehner: two tobacco corporation lobbyists on his advisory board) and its candidates.

Why Big Tobackgo fears cannabis
In ascending order:


 * 2. Over 100 million persons smoke cannabis today worldwide, and it could, if legalized, readily REPLACE tobacco among many smokers now each paying up to $4000 a year (pack a day in a high-tax US state) to that Industry;


 * 1. (Much worse) because cannabis contains no overdose-addictive drug such as nicotine, many users are content to use infinitesimally small amounts, such as a 25-mg single toke, in a miniature pipe or single-toke utensil.  If this conservative behavior, legalized de facto along with the cannabis, began to be adopted widely by tobacco smokers instead of the profitable 700-mg overdose cigarette (net weight not listed on the label! I weighed a Winston once to find out), the industry profit margin would be doomed.


 * The above is medically disputed. THC is an active addictive element in marijuana.  Further, despite the early hysteria and humor associated with propaganda like "Reefer Madness" shown in U.S. schools in the 60s and 70s, scientific studies have found a clear correlation between use of Marijuana and subsequent use of harder drugs such as cocaine, heroin, meth, etc..


 * While THC may appear to be psychologically addictive for some, it is rare to encounter anyone craving 20 hot-burning monoxide 700-mg cigarettes (1/2 ounce!) of it a day-- "pack-a-day" routine for nicotine. For a discussion of gateway drug theory, see Talk page.

Why Big Pharma fears cannabis
In ascending order:


 * 2. Cannabis is alleged to be a viable cheap, natural substitute for many present-day highly profitable drugs;


 * 1. Should cannabis legalization result in a sudden drastic reduction in illnesses caused by tobacco, due to correlative legalizing of an anti-overdose smoking utensil which can be used by tobacco smokers instead of the profitable overdose cigarette format, the result could be a matching drastic reduction in the demand for high-profit drugs and treatments needed by patients suffering "tobacco-related" diseases such as high blood pressure which result from chronic cigarette overuse.  A 2014 study found that treating illness caused by cigarette smoking cost the US economy $135-bil a year-- which surely for the most part consists of profits to the medical care industry.

Why so many present-day cannabis users smoke a "joint" or "blunt" rather than use a conservative utensil

 * 3. Partly, of course, it's the longtime cigarette advertising, creating a profitable "tradition" which offers a glamorized grown-upness of fearlessly gesturing with a kind of symbolic torch in your hand (like the gun in typical crime drama shows-- "Winston tastes good, like a !!!!  !!!!  (gunshots) cigarette should!").  The hot burning overdose "joint" helps an emotionally insecure user borrow a media repertory of trucculent defiant tobacco cigarette (or gunwaving) gestures, relieving personal anxiety by intimidating others.


 * 2. More recently, it is alleged that, since the 90's, tobacco companies slipped money to "wRAP" artists to include references to "blunts" in their songs.  (A "blunt" is a cigar-skin with the tobacco filler discarded and an overdose of expensive cannabis rolled (wRapped) inside.  User poses as a hypermasculine bigshot with the big "cigar", also it's dark-colored, helping some to assert a racial identity etc.  Because the cigar wrapper contains nicotine, it's a sneaky way to get youngsters hooked! (If the nicotine helps get them hooked on further drugs, prohibitionists can then conveniently blame that on the cannabis.)  Note tobaccularity of key artist names such as "Cool" and "Tu-Pac".


 * 1. The main reason is fear of the (paraphernalia) law-- it's easier to hide or dispose of a "joint" than a pipe, you're in less danger of being arrested while they fish for evidence of something even worse to book you on, or of losing your investment in the utensil (such as a $600 vaporizer).  People say, "If the cops find one of those in here, they'll confiscate my car!"

Some legal ideas concerning utensils

 * Try to get a signed official letter from your congressman or other government official, or a prescription from a physician, authorizing you to possess and use an anti-overdose smoking utensil, on the premise that its purpose is to enable you to protect your health by REDUCING ("tobacco") consumption.


 * Q. Keep in mind that in the U.S. no letter from an official can exempt you from equal application of statutes as written. At worst it may embroil the official in criminal conspiracy charges.  [2007]
 * A. That being the case, let's remind politicians that suppressing anti-overdose smoking equipment to prevent "drug use" is like suppressing condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
 * Q. Be aware that some medical cannabis users in the U.S. have found federal law enforcement willing and able to lock up medical users despite full compliance with local and state laws. I am looking for citations from California. Please find links provided below. Mirwin 02:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * http://www.canorml.org/news/EasternDistrictCrackdown.htm
 * http://www.canorml.org/home.htm


 * A. True, but bear in mind the above suggestions concern only possession of a utensil, for stated tobacco-reduction use, and not possession of cannabis. In the above recommended letter, and in political advocacy, maybe one could present the argument that possession of an anti-overdose utensil is evidence of the intent to be a sober responsible citizen, more within the law than a reckless self-destructive hot-burning-overdose torchbearing slavewarrior.  Note: as legalizing states are seeking guidelines for addressing cannabis use, it might be wisely suggested that possession of a vaporizer or a 25-mg nano-toke utensil be required to purchase or possess cannabis legally.

Vaporizer
The most effective way to eliminate cigarette-smoking immediately may be to acquire and use a vaporizer, which instead of burning herb material at 1500° F/860° C every time user sucks on it, can be set to heat the herb (ANY SPECIES) at an appropriate temperature (tobacco around 300F, cannabis 385F) thus entirely avoiding the combustion toxicity which accounts for the majority of health damage from smoking.

The top-of-the-line Volcano, selling for $600, has been endorsed by Allen F. St. Pierre, Executive Director of NORML, for medicinal cannabis patients (2007). Note that instead of cannabis, an amount of shredded tobacco removed from a cigarette can be inserted, or strong pipe tobacco, or a segment cut from a cigar. At first glance, the price looks steep, but consider that a pack-a-day cigaret addict is burning up $4000 a year in high-tax New York City).

If, according to 2014 US Surgeon General estimate, medical consequences of cigarette smoking cost, for example, the US economy $289 BILLION every year, it would be cost-effective for the taxpayer to buy all 45 million cigarette addicts each a Volcano vaporizer for a one-time outlay of $27 billion! This could be paid for out of the 1998 Clinton $200B tobacco settlement money-- in case any of it is left over from roads, schools, police etc.; that money was supposed to be used for stop-smoking programs.

Vaporizer Cafes
If, in the meantime, you wish to try vaporization, there are numerous brands which operate several different ways; where can one try more than one kind of vaporizer to decide which to buy, or get some practice and counseling so that after investing the money you don't break the device by some mistake which voids your rights under the guarantee?

One way to address this hurdle and introduce larger numbers of persons to vaporization is by setting up vaporizer cafes, at which one can for an introductory fee try various vaporizers and have the services of a trained staff person or coach, as you learn the art of vape toke etc.

E-cigarette
This product, developed in China, has a rechargeable battery and a heating element which vaporizes liquid nicotine, along with propylene glycol, to create a smoke-like fog after each toke, and may include other flavorings so you can get one which tastes like a cigar, a Marlboro etc.

Single-toke utensil
For most of the 1.2 billion smokers worldwide, vaporizers may not be affordable immediately so it would certainly be cheaper to manufacture several billion miniature "smoking" utensils (oneheaters), which deserve to be named semi-vaporizers, for if while sucking slow and steadily the user holds a moderate lighter flame (one-half inch high-- use a cheap Chinese lighter with a flame height dial) the right distance below the top opening of the crater-head, (A) heating the glass or metal wall (conduction), (B) heating the air going in (convection), much of the herb essence will have time to vaporize out from each particle being heated or, once burning has started, by adjacent burning particles, before that particle itself catches on fire.

Selection of appropriate mini-utensil

 * The premier qualifying attribute is smallness of the burning chamber (bowl, or to make it sound smaller, crater). The narrower the diameter of the crater, the lower temperature can be achieved-- VAPE, NOT BURN!  By sucking slowly and steadily through an extension tube you can get all the product, eliminating  all side-stream smoke (ETS) which has been determined to contain several times more carbon monoxide than main-stream smoke inhaled directly through the device.


 * Ideal crater size is 5.5 mm (7/32"), 6.0 mm or 1/4 inch (6.3 mm) i.d., with a Mesh-40 (40 windows per linear inch) wire screen sitting at a depth of 3/16 inch/4 mm. This is small enough to permit a 25-mg.(1/40 gram) "single toke" serving of sifted herb-- 28 of these from one broken-down commercial cigarette, 20 from a typical "joint".


 * The flexible extension tube should be long enough to provide maximum distance for heated aerosol (preferably more vapor than smoke) to travel, cooling down, before it reaches your trachea-- and the crater end is far enough from your face that you can see what you are doing as you enact the easy-learn, heat-not-burn Vapetoke Technique. Fancy tubes such as those used on hookahs are acceptable, or some clear flexible p.v.c. tubing, most often 1/4" o.d. or 3/8" o.d.

Chillum
Made in India and Jamaica, traditionally a stick of wood or other material 4-5 inches long, with a channel running end to end and a wider opening at one end. See the wikiHow.com free article on How to Convert a Wasteful Wide-Mouth Chillum into a Long-Stemmed One-Hitter (which currently includes unique but imperfect typeface illustrations which need to be replaced by a handdrawn cartoon diagram format when someone with scanning technology gets around to it).

Kiseru


Used in Japan since about 1600, this has a wrought metal crater-head and mouthpiece with a long stretch of bamboo in between. You can substitute a flexible drawtube (pvc etc.) for the bamboo piece. Get a cylindrical-shaped crater instead of conical so your screen will sit securely inside. For a store marketing kiseru on line (and a special Japanese type of stringy tobacco like corn silk), see [].

Midwakh
A small pipe of Arabian origin, in which dokha is smoked, a confection of tobacco and other herbs. Especially popular in the U.A.E. where teenagers were reported to be converting to it from cigarettes, in the wake of $moking bans introduced in September 2007. You might attach a long hookah tube when using it.

Sebsi


Made in Morocco with a clay L-shaped head and a long bamboo or hardwood drawstem. If the stem is not long enough, attach a flexible pvc drawtube to it.

Consider making your own

 * The easiest utensil to make features a quarter-inch (or 6 mm. or 6.5 mm.) socket-wrench. Wedge a screen 3/16"/4 mm. down into the hex end and cram a long quarter-inch o.d. flexible tube up into the square (driver) end.  A layer of tape wrapped around your tube might make it fit tight and secure in the square hole.   Tape around to air-seal the crack between the metalpiece and the tube.  Use 1-mm. colorful plastic-shielded land-line telephone wires (the kind in grey cables, that you find being thrown away when buildings are remodeled) to wrap tight around the taped area, then form a 5-inch braid leading out to a big 2-inch safety-pin.  This will be handy every time you need to clear screen windows!  See wikiHow.com free article: "Make Pipes from Everyday Objects".


 * Use a brass barbed hose-nipple-- look for a quarter-inch i.d. crater, or you may start with one that is too narrow and drill it wider, using a quarter-inch Speedbor drill bit in a variable speed electric drill). Drill up to 3/16" depth, forming a shoulder that holds the screen in place above where the passage narrows.  The extension tube slips tight over the barbed butt end of the brass piece.


 * Glass: with oxy-acetyl flame, a 1/4-inch o.d. carbon rod (for crater-shaping) and needle-nose tongs, little Pyrex glass utensils are easily made, shaped like the hose-nipple described above, use needle-nose tongs to stretch out a narrow tip over which the flexible tube fits. Get some instruction first in safe use of the glassmaking equipment.


 * Stone: with a set of (expensive) diamond masonry drill bits in an electric hammer-drill, making first smaller, then larger and larger holes, it is possible to produce a crater-head from a beautiful hard stone pebble, imitating the interior shape of a socket wrench with its narrower mid-channel.


 * In a hardwood bead or branch segment you can make a quarter-inch crater, to a depth of 3/16"/4 mm., with a narrower mid-channel as above, or narrowing down further leading to a tightly inserted 3/16" brass tube segment as an exit arm over which the extension tube fits. You can get away with not lining the wood crater by only heating the herb, or burning little herb at low temperature, and by having an upside-down-bottlecap-shaped screen whose side legs stick 1/8" up the side(s) of the cylindrical crater.


 * To use a beautiful piece of softwood, drill a 9/32" crater-hole to depth of 3/16" and slip a ring of brass tube, 9/32" o.d., 1/4" i.d., down inside it. You'll need a tube-cutter (cheap) to make a ring 3/16" long.  Telescoping sizes of brass tubing (esp. 3/16", 7/32", 1/4", 9/32" outer diameters) are available from K & S Engineering, Chicago [].


 * Jan. 31, 2008: cannabis-advocacy organizations such as NORML should be lobbied to invest their advocacy power in legalizing and legitimizing a cheap hand-made anti-overdose utensil, as described above, for everyone (regardless of herb used) who can not afford to buy a vaporizer or have had an expensive one confiscated by "tobacco enforcement" officials.

Preparation of tobacco

 * Make your first decisive "break" with the overdose habit by carrying just one or two cigarettes around instead of a whole pack (20)!


 * Tear a tiny amount of tobacco off the tip of a cigarette and cram it in the screened 1/4" crater. The shredded tobacco found in most cigarets will do just fine.


 * Pipe and cigar tobaccoes, and other herb species, may require to be first sifted through a Mesh #16 screen strainer (window size = 1/16th-inch/1.6-mm.), producing uniform-sized smooth-vaping/burning particles. Don't smoke larger chunks.  Suggestions for sifting very delicate expensive herb species are found in "Re Manufacturing", on the Talk Page of Wikipedia Article, "Kief" [w:Talk:Kief].

Directions for use

 * First practice sucking continuously very slow for up to 15 seconds through an unlit utensil (after perhaps consulting articles about hatha yoga breathing exercises).


 * Use a Chinese lighter that has a little black dial to control flame height, and set it for a half inch so it can be kept burning 19 seconds or so without getting too hot.


 * After loading a long-stemmed utensil, hold it crater-upright and, while sucking slowly, hold the lighter flame an inch or more below the slightly tilted crater opening, so that air entering upon the 25-mg load of sifted herb will be about 350F (for tobacco, other herbs have other vaporizing temperatures).


 * If after a while the herb starts glowing, keep sucking, and with the metal shield at the head of the lighter (another reason why matches won't do) tap the top of the crater several times, shaking the coal (burning herb) so that it falls downward into a compact mass over the operative middle screen windows and continues burning to completion. Hopefully you got the nutrient you want-- nicotine or other-- out during the vaping stage and now you are just finishing off some tasty left-over cellulose.


 * After burning appears exhausted, you can briefly light once again to finish any unburned material.


 * One underestimated easy way to get more enjoyment from fewer smaller tokes is after finishing, before you exhale, hold a Breathbonnet (breadbag) over your breath organs (nose and mouth), then breathe 30 warm wet W's out through the mouth into the bag, in through the nose into the bloodstream-- 30 TIMES AS MUCH FUN AS WHAT YOU USED TO DO WITH A CIGARETTE BUT NOW GENTLER WITH LESS MONOXIDE. Remember, your aim is to make this 25-mg. single toke substitute for an entire 700-mg. cigarette.


 * Guess what-- afterwards you can suck out and eat the ashes (yes even tobacco, if completely burned)-- they contain nutritious minerals which the combustion has rendered more digestible.  (Why pass up any benefit or enjoyment?)  Swish the material around on your tongue to get an idea of the taste.  Gently scratching the screen with the maintenance utensil (see above) while sucking from the other end of the tube will loosen up some remaining ashes for this purpose.


 * With cigarettes, of course, the "official" (i.e. expensively advertised) "light-up" method has always been to hold the flame near for a second or two while sucking hard enough to get the entire tip of the cigarette burning at 1500° F/860° C.-- and that's seven inches from your trachea! No, not to make it "smoother", "better tasting" or anything, but just to get it started burning on its own power so it "Conveniently" doesn't go out until you have had those 9-10 more overdose "puffs" they have taught you to want-- which are the KEY TO ADDICTION.


 * (They want you to feel guilty about throwing some away without "using it up", but you wouldn't dare put it out for later use and try to carry The Butt with you on a bus, would you? Yukh.)


 * "Hold light an inch below,
 * suck smoooooooth, slow,
 * don't start any glow
 * till after 9-19
 * seconds or so."
 * (If in doubt, consult a hatha yoga expert.) By contrast, a "puff" on a hot-burning cigaret usually means about 1-2 seconds, a "drag" is 2-4 seconds.  (Think how hot that gets, Humphrey Bogart died age 57 of cigaret cancer.  What a drag.)

Double toke
With a two-stemmed utensil and a partner, the following surprising benefits are available:
 * While burning the same 25-mg. serving size, each partner sucks twice as slow-- twice the yoga training. Count how many seconds mentally while you slowly steadily suck.
 * Each partner gets half the heat,
 * making it twice as mild!
 * Then use a double-ended breathbonnet, stare in her eyes and hypnotize.
 * You need the encouragement/resocialization. (Think of the advertising money they spent making you think overdose cigarettes or passed-around "joints" were something shared or sociable.  Instead, victims were isolated, each with their own thumb-suckin' cigarette gesture language, living in a fantasy world of fear of germs or whatever, using that side-stream smoke to fend off children and enemies.)

Paperwork-- not the rolled kind
Many smoking cessation experts recommend keeping a diary. Here's how it works with your reduction utensil program:


 * On a single line, after maybe just the date, write a "t" for each single toke you did and a capital "C" for each entire cigaret. It might look something like this:


 * Monday, December 12: ttCtttCtttttCttt   (etc.)


 * All those little "t"'s and big "C"'s will keep reminding you that you are "Ctttttin' down!"

Other brands

 * Try substitutin' tobacco from other cigaret brands (trade off one-for-one with this friend and that friend, etc.!) and get knowledgeable about different tastes in your new format.


 * Try high-nicotine brands, including $$ exotic imports, using tiny amounts of course.


 * Try cigar and pipe tobaccoes (use that 1/16th-inch screen sifter). Get a collection of little cannisters to carry the different tobacco types in.

Herbal alternatives
Here's a list of "smokable"/vapeable herbs, almost all legally available from health food stores, usually bought by the ounce or a few ounces in a package at even lower prices than the tobacco marketed in cigarettes.


 * (*)Starred items-- if of appropriate dryness-- should be broken down in a blender at slow speed, then handgrindsifted through a 1/16"-mesh screen (sieve), (unless the supplier has already provided an even-particle-size product).


 * Any chunks too large to go through the 1/16" sifter can instead go in the "pot"-- tea pot, I mean! Any "dust" so fine it would clog the crater-screen of your single-toke utensil may be shake/separated out with a 1/30"-mesh sifter and used to co-flavor your next crockpotload of veggie stew.


 * If you wish to toke that fine "dust" because it is expensive high-value kief loaded with trichomes, use a sharp pin to gently scratch the screen of your utensil while sucking through the drawtube (may take several seconds, be patient) to reopen all central windows before each serving. The ashdust is nutritious, contains minerals liberated during the previous toke.

Please add further information to this list-- both names of herbs you know about (original research encouraged) and information on how to sift, prepare and serve them in a vaporizer, one-hitter or other suitable utensil.


 * alfalfa, anise (leaf), aloe (leaf), Althaea officinalis (marshmallow leaves)


 * basil (considered the King of Herbs by ancient Greeks), borage, *buchu(Barosma), burdock


 * camomile, catnip (Nepeta cataria. Actually, there are over 250 species of genus Nepeta, probably all usable), *chaparrel or creosote bush (Larrea tridentata.  One living Arizona specimen of this shrub is allegedly 11,600 years old), clover, comfrey, corn silk (wait till they get brown and chop them down)


 * damiana, dandelion, dill


 * echinacea, elder(yellow flowers), *eucalyptus


 * fo-ti-tieng


 * garlic (the dried outer paper), ginkgo, ginseng(leaf, not root), goldenseal, gotu kola


 * hawthorn, heather, hibiscus, hops (Humulus lupulus-- use the yellow flowers; mildest of all smoking/vaping-herbs), huckleberry (Vaccinium myrtillus:leaf)


 * *kinnickinnick or bearberry (Uva ursi-- leaf; widely used by ancient Americans in mixtures with and without tobacco)


 * lavendar(three or four little buds per serving), lemon balm (Melissa), lemon grass, linden, lobelia(often recommended because the effect mimics nicotine)


 * marjoram, marygold, *matté, mugwort, mullein


 * nettle (Urtica-- the soft green minus the stingers, a surprisingly mild toke)


 * orange(flowers, very sweet), oregano (most popular of all herbs. Two cents worth of oregano adds $4 to the price of a pizza)


 * pennyroyal (mint), peppermint, plantain


 * rosebud, rosemary (chop little logs of 3-mm. length and use 4 to 6 at a time)


 * saffron(flowers), sage (Salvia; dozens of legal species, all good, even if you can't get the famous divinorum), St.-John's-wort (Hypericum), sassafras (leaves), savory, scullcap, senna, slippery elm, spearmint, stevia


 * tarragon, thyme


 * verbena


 * willow (bark shavings or leaf), wintergreen, wormwood (Artemisia absinthia; grotesque-tasting but safe in moderate quantity despite its reputation)


 * yarrow, yohimbe (bark shavings)


 * Just about any dried flower petal salvaged from a wedding or funeral...


 * Hundreds of other good herbs can be tracked down in herb guide books and websites.


 * At the end of the summer, gather dry brown leaves from your favorite trees and bushes. (Grinding usually needed; store sifted herb in little cannisters properly labeled on top).  Get to know nature right in your neighborhood more safely than with illegal carbon-monoxide leaf-bonfires.


 * Concerning the #1 Alternative herb, recently legalized in 4 States, DC and Uruguay:

(a) keep and use such small quantities you're unlikely to get caught or ticketed (Holder memorandum, August 2013)-- a gram is 40 tokes;

(b) use such small quantities it can hardly do any harm (limit a half dozen tokes a day);

(c) keep a few tokes in a cannister with the name "Oregano" or other legalese on the top to satisfy a rogue cop or literal-minded stoolpigeon.

Like, real drugs

 * The War on drugs is there to protect you from trying concentrated pharmaceutical weapons like cocaine and heroin; meanwhile have you ever tried toking a little bit of coca leaf? poppy petal?  Could a 25 mg. single toke of one of those possibly be more dangerous than 200 sledgehammer overdoses of carbon monoxide a day (reckoning 10 puffs x 20 cigarets)?

Fetal = fatal
Frankie or his successors got your mother hooked on smoking cigarettes, or on spending time with hooked males, or on being seen hearing cool music in scenes where it was necessary to sit inhaling sidestream smoke from dozens of cigarettes, i.e. you as egg (ovum) were already chronically exposed to nicotine even decades before you were conceived and born.

"Cool"
It started in school-- or in the schoolyard, among bullies, where the key to escaping being bullied was to be "cool"-- i.e. inconspicuous, impassive, undemonstrative, unemotional, someone they can't "get a rise out of". Nicotine constricts the capillary system so the blood vessels leading to the skin carry 40% less warmth (to drive flushing, quivering or other evidence of emotion) and you're really "cool".

School
Not at first, but once you have inhaled enough side-stream smoke hanging out with the cool kids, or sucked a few sucker-hits yourself, one of those nights arrives when the big test is the next day!-- and you know if you smoke a few cigarets you will be able to stay awake and cram all night, or slog through writing the tedious source-theme that is due tomorrow. This is the critical Sleep-Suppression-Emergency (SSE) moment when true crutch-dependence is established. Fortunately you're grown-up enough now, i.e. no more beginner symptoms-- Chills, Nausea, Dizziness, Faintness-- your immune system's resistance is blown away, and you can take it like a man. Excellent "training" for a post-schooling military career where everything may depend on not falling asleep through millions of hours on guard when "nothing happens" (quote from some famous WWI British poem?).

"Parental"
Well, after all, if you don't qualify to get into that Ivy League college you'll never get the diploma needed to qualify for the high paying job, after your parents spent so much money on you & now they are counting on you to be a source of economic security in their old age!

They probably won't like your cigaret smoking but... "Well, I guess it means he's going to settle down and get a steady job." (Besides, it might help you hide your cannabis use-- watch it, they've seen all those Drugfree Partnership scare ads.) Your dad will threaten; your mother will burst into tears. "Please don't throw away all we did for you, we'll die soon enough and then you can do anything you damn please!"

Marriage ritual
If kissing scares you (the Propa & Ganda Co. taught you to fear germs), it's less disgusting if both partners do something even more disgusting first, i.e. a cigarette, you're USED to that.

Playboy Magazine cartoons often show someone in bed, after sex, smoking a cigarette. That might not directly improve sex, rather is counted on to "cool" the seething inner quagmire of unresearchable post-childhood emotional turmoils that sabotage sex.

Feeling full
"Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet."-- 30's jingle. Nicotine (snack-eatin') is said to reduce cravings to munch on (or substitute for) fattenin' foods. Many, especially women, fear to quit due to warnings that they will gain weight.

Harold Washington Syndrome
According to Salim Muwakkil, writing in In These Times, Harold spent a career appearing at innumerable dinners showing solidarity by eating good old Soul Food. At the height of his power (1987) his heart doctors forced him to quit smoking; his weight ballooned to 284, he bent over to pick up a pencil, could neither get up nor breathe, heart attack, died on the spot. Would Harold have lived (and served 20 years as Mayor of Chicago as he intended) if he had been prescribed a Choomette long-stemmed single-toke utensil and a gram (40 tokes) of oregano?

Career tool
What steroids are to a notorious big time athlete, nicotine is to the stayawake bureaucrat busywork hireling. You need the money; survival is the issue. "Stay awake, look busy, fool the boss, bring home paycheck." Final payoff: in the last decade of your life you may have to pass on much of that money to doctors, hospitals, drug companies, etc. in order to squeeze out a few more years, see a grandchild or two and disappear safely into the "average" lifespan statistics leaving a depleted estate for their coolege oops sorry college needs.

What about weight gain?
Today one of the most controversial grounds for dependency on smoking is weight control. Can a dosage reduction without quitting be the key to maintaining weight control without paying the overdose-disease price for it?


 * Keep a small knife in your purse or briefcase for cutting easily carried things like pears, apples, etc. Let long chewing episodes with a mouthful of veggies replace the 5-10 minutes that you used to keep a cigaret going.


 * If you open a can of beef stew, use it as a flavoring and budget yourself a week to use it up. Program meat and junk foods etc. to be used in small amounts or occasionally.  Carry zapsacks (ziplock bags) with you to put meat or heavily oversalted, oversugared foods in, to take safely to your distant refrigerator, instead of eating them on the spot out of megadose guilt.


 * PLEASE ADD FURTHER HINTS TO THIS LIST.

Quitting through short-term memory reduction

 * The nicotine addict is a prodigy athlete of scheming and planning. He or she takes on tons of mental exercise just planning when and where the next cigaret, the next ten cigarets, etc. will be served up, and how and when the next pack will be purchased.  (Even a major percentage of car mileage consists of driving somewhere where cigarets are sold at any hour, etc., adding in all the further esoteric bureaucracy-- parking and unparking, not losing the car keys etc.))


 * Something can be done to unlearn that obsessive mental grip on the schedule, the sequence of smoking breaks etc. littering the available waking time of addicts. One (1) toke of any other herb than tobacco (not just cannabis, many others listed above) can break the grip of this overcommitted memory function, which is the body's response to a nicotine overdose.


 * In the first minutes after any toke, if there is any short span of time when it is necessary to wait for something, try to fill up that interval with a few isometric (small muscular) exercises, and mentally count how many you do as they are going on.


 * Spend a few hours each week learning long-term material, such as music, through memorization practice. Reading a score or libretto while hearing music (do-it-yourself audio-visual) provides practice in the form of mental coordination effort.  Singing in a choir or congregation supplies the same kind of exercise.  The better you know any song or piece, the more easily it can draw you into exercising spontaneously, should that same tune emerge in your mind at an opportunte time.  Conductors, who read scores while hearing music, are said to have the longest life span in western society.  They study a piece until they have a merging of identity with it which is expressed in their rhythmic arm movements conducting, and so an identity of present-moment exercise and 1ong-term memory is achieved.


 * Socially obligatory eating rituals and how to escape them, or the Haro1d Washington Syndrome (in preparation)

The NOT program

 * Program designed by the American Lung Association for adolescents actively wanting to quit using Tobacco. Has shown to be more effective than previous programs mainly because it works at a voluntary level. Most students going through the program are ready to quit but need the extra resource to do so.


 * Offers many unique opportunities and teaching styles. The NOT program: includes 10 session about 50 minutes long; offered in small-groups; voluntary rather than punitive; covers all aspects of quitting (from preparation to relapse); delivered by same-gender facilitators (emphasis on gender issues); has 4 booster sessions; covers issue relevance in teen-friendly language; uses peer group discussions, journals, and experiential activities; integrates nutrition and physical activity.


 * In a recent studies the valid 15-month quit rate for the NOT program was somewhere between 11% and 22%. This is significant compared to other programs focusing on cessation. Of those participants, half of them were still involved in the NOT program 15 months after it began, and they attended 70% of the program.