It took  months of  sleuthing for  immunologist  John L. Pauly Ph.D.,  to  identify the
glowing, snakelike substance he saw through his microscope while inspecting lung
tissue from a lung cancer patient who smoked. And what did the mystery substance
turn out  to be?  A fiber composed  of cellulose  acetate the  material used to make
cigarette filters. The fiber glowed under the microscope because it was coated with
tobacco tar which contains more than 3,500 different chemicals  at least 40 of which
are known to cause cancer.  Dr. Pauly and his colleagues followed up this find with
studies  testing 12 popular  brands of  cigarettes  manufactured by  six U.S. tobacco
companies.  The studies  revealed  that  fibers  are  indeed  released from cigarette
filters and subsequently can be inhaled to lodge indefinitely in smokers' lung tissue.

According to Pauly, the fibers  remain  embedded there  because  cellulose acetate
doesn't break down easily and  because smokers have a very  difficult time clearing
foreign substances  from their lungs.  Once embedded, the filter  bits  provide a bad
vehicle for delivering a concentrated dose of tobacco tar directly to lung tissue. The
bottom  line?  The  very  substance  created  in  response  to  the  call  for a "safer"
cigarette actually has the potential to  enhance cancer risk.  Filters merely create a
false sense of security;  they are not the  answer for smokers  who wish to decrease
their cancer risk. Quitting the cigarette habit remains the only choice.

Lung cancer death  rates among  women smokers  soared six fold from the 1960s to
the 1980s, a new study found. Such deaths  increased from 26 per 100,000 to 155 per
100,000, said one  of  the researchers,  Dr. Michael J. Thun  of the  American Cancer
Society.  Since 1960 the use of filtered cigarettes has  increased dramatically which
tends to verify the above study.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Smokers can quit  with the clock  -  Taken from  Journal of  Consulting and Clinical
Psychology. (Published  by  The  M.D. Anderson  Cancer  Center,  Houston,  Texas).
Smokers trying to kick the habit  may have a far  better chance of success if they let
the clock tell them when they may have a cigarette.  In a study, the strategy proved
twice as  successful  in the  long term  as quitting  cold turkey or  allotting oneself a
certain number of  cigarettes  per day.  The clock strategy  assigns smokers specific
times of day for lighting up. They follow a schedule with longer and longer intervals
between cigarettes before they quit altogether.  "They're still going to get to smoke,
they're just not  going to get to  smoke when  they want to smoke,"  said researcher
Paul Cinciripini.  By repeatedly putting  their nicotine urges on hold for manageable
periods, smokers  gain practice  and  self confidence  for when they  quit altogether,
said Cinciripini,  director  of  the  smoking  cessation  program  at  the  University of
Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

My Solution:
Three months ago I smoked 3 packs/day. Today I am cigarette free! It is hard to
believe how easy it was. I feel like I have been reborn.  For 50 years I have been a
smoker.  I tried the gum, the patch, hypnosis and anything I could find.  Nothing
solved  the problem. The patch makes it seem easy....at first.  The problem  is that
the  addiction remains.

Go off the patch, and you are usually back to square one. Statistics reveal that only
a small percentage are able to  quit with only  the patch ot gum.  When I read  the
above  article I began to think..... one doesn't begin by smoking 2-3 packs  per day.
One gradually builds the addiction. It made sense to get rid of the addiction exactly
the same way you developed it.......little by little.

I never turn  my computer off  (they  last  longer  that  way).   Why not use software,
running in the background, which would alert you when it was time for a cigarette?
It  simply goes  "ding"  ten  times  when  you should  smoke another.  If you want to
watch, it shows exactly how many  minutes until your next cigarette. Each new day
the software  will  reduce your  allotted cigarettes  by only one each day. Could you
survive on  one less  cigarette per day?  Of course  you could.  The software  is only
about 45k.  Downloads in about  10 seconds  (at 28k baud).  It will run  as well on an
original  IBM PC as  a new Pentium.  I used it  as a background  task in my windows.
One initializes the software by telling it:

How many cigarettes you average smoking daily.
What hour you begin to smoke each day.
How many hours you are awake.

It remembers  and the  rest is automatic  provided the  PC runs 24 hrs/day. It ceases
the alerts after you retire and begins the next day  when you awaken, those people.
You can run one copy  on the home PC, and one  on the PC  at the office. When you
leave the PC you tell the software. When you return you  tell it how many cigarettes
you  smoked  while away  and it  readjusts  the days allocation.  Seven  patients are
using this software. Maria started 28 days ago. She just called. "I am down to 12/day
from 40.  I'm gonna  make it!".  Only one  has dropped out.  One Must  WANT to quit
which is  not the case  with many smokers.  With almost  no effort you  can regain a
glorious life free of the disgusting, killer addiction.