This thread is maddening. We've been very successful at reducing smoking rates without being absolute fascists about it. Most people find nicotine pleasant or they never would have had that second dose. Nicotine is addictive as hell- there's pretty much nothing else like it.
That is antismoking mythology. Most long term smokers who can't quit are not smoking because of nicotine. Nicotine is only mildly addictive and its widthdrawal symptoms (which are tolerable even on cold turkey quitting) last only few days. With nicotine replacement one can eliminate these symptoms completely, yet the person will resume smoking (only few percent manage to quit using pharmaceutical NRT). If it were about nicotine addiction NRT would work (hand motions etc, are non addictive trivial habits), but it doesn't even beat cold turkey (except in short term cessation). Neither are MAOI B effects of tobacco smoke since adding selegiline to NRT barely makes a difference in quitting rates.
The reason many smokers can't quit (nearly every one has probably tried after all the pressures and costs) is that
tobacco is a potent medicinal plant with myriad
unique therapeutic and protective effects that nothing else can replace -- there is no other substance, synthetic or natural, which covers even remotely as wide therapeutic spectrum and in such depth as tobacco smoke. There was an earlier long thread "
Smoking is good for you" on this subject. Since there was lots of noise (from antismoking hysterics) the
TOC with highlights is here, where item #17 attempts to list what would it take to replace the known major beneficial effects of tobacco smoke (any of which may be the primary reason why a person continues to smoke in the face of all the costs and hardship; there are probably some presently unknown as well).
For some effects, such as strong upregulation of all major detox & antioxidant enzymes (near doubling of glutathione, catalase and SOD, possibly as a hormetic effects), there isn't anything else you can take to replicate these effects. For example, if someone is exposed to high levels of industrial toxins (e.g. heavy metals, paints, solvents etc) or is particularly sensitive to them at lower exposures, smoking, by doubling their detox rates, is the only thing which can make their job or living conditions tolerable. Nicotine, Zyban, Chantix,... won't do a squat for such person.
Similarly, person smoking to keep their autoimmune disease tolerable, won't benefit much from any such replacement since tobacco smoke has unique multilevel anti-inflammatory/anti-sepsis spectrum (pressing anti-inflammatory levers from CNS/vagus controls to nicotinic receptors in somatic cells). Nicotine alone yields only partial anti-inflammatory effects of the full tobacco smoke (e.g. see the TOC link above for rheumatoid arhtirits experiments). Another related benefits without substitute are the potent anti-amyloidosis effects (including protection against beta-amyloidosis of brain a.k.a. Alzheimer's). It is extremely inhumane to keep tormenting & punishing people who are self-medicating with tobacco to compel them quit.
Of course, that's why the chief sponsor of antismoking is none other than pharmaceutical industry, spending many billions over last few decades, on buying antismoking laws, regulations and hypertaxation of smokers, spawning and financing "grass roots" antismoking groups, creating and peddling antismoking junk science,... Of course, pharma invests on wars against other natural medicines & remedies as well, but it fights none as viciously as tobacco, the most beneficial of them all. If you look at the sharp rise of medical costs and of numerous diseases (especially of autoimmune type) as smoking rates more than halved over the last 2-3 decades, it becomes obvious why the pharma and the rest of the sickness industry are doing everything they can to suppress tobacco smoking.
I watched my dad have a freaking seizure from one of his numerous attempts to quite smoking.
Quitting smoking (or starting smoking) doesn't by itself cause seizures. The seizures he had may be due to pharmaceuticals he used in the process (e.g. Zyban & some other antidepressants can cause seizures in some people). Or it may be that he was self-medicating with tobacco for some condition which could lead to seizures if left untreated (e.g. some auto/inflammatory process, or some CNS toxicity kept in check by smoking). Many long-term smokers who have hard time quitting will get very sick, even get lung cancer (see items #6, #11, #12 from the TOC list) shortly after abruptly quitting.