Tell the Truth: Stop Smoking's Secret Solution - Will You Help or Hurt?

Winston-Salem, NC (PRWeb) December 4, 2006 -- Today, Truth for Healthy Living and its sponsor are launching an exposé-fueled campaign to begin the meaningful involvement of clinical addiction specialists in treating America's most deadly addiction. Says the sponsor, "Their knowledge of addiction science suggests that licensed clinical addiction specialists (LCAS) are more likely to know what it takes to stop smoking permanently. But they now do little to help adults and our children suffering with nicotine dependence (addiction)."

Dr. Richard Lovelace describes how he searched extensively for clinical addiction specialists (CAS) devoted to treating nicotine addiction. He found no one. He did identify some groups that said they treated "tobacco addiction" or "tobacco dependence." Lovelace believes they were "misled into unknowingly saying they could help with something that doesn't exist."

The doctor's independent investigation suggests that seemingly innocent "mislabeling" (tobacco addiction is one example) is being done to make enormous profits for a few international corporations. (For more, visit the website to read the article, Stop Smoking's Secret Solution.) Lovelace says, "The website, www.truth-for-healthy-living.org, helps to counter that kind of unethical treatment of our children and their financial futures by giving their parents 'politically incorrect' facts about stopping smoking, weight-loss, and stress management."

The website's sponsor asserts that applying labels such as "tobacco addiction" (2,350 references found in scholarly papers alone) and "alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs" (ATOD) tells a "huge untruth that kills: tobacco is a drug. So-called 'tobacco addiction' (or tobacco dependence) does not exist. It simply isn't real. The organizations, professional associations, and academic institutions now telling the public, helping professionals and students tobacco is a drug deserve our encouragement to be accurate. They need, please, to tell present and future cigarette smokers the truth required to save their lives."

"Mislabeling for profit," says Dr. Lovelace, "is exceedingly harmful. It subtly encourages smoking and discourages getting help from clinical addiction specialists by focusing way too much on the plant instead of the actual problem: nicotine addiction. It compares to deadly mislabeling done in a pharmacy."

"Nicotine addiction - certainly and absolutely not tobacco, cigarettes or smoking them - is the leading cause of preventable U.S. deaths . . . 435,000 each year or four times more than alcohol and illicit drugs combined. No one is a chronic heavy tobacco smoker unless he or she suffers from nicotine addiction. That means," warns the doctor, "we are putting nearly 100 percent of our addiction-knowledgeable efforts into only 20 percent of our worldwide drug addiction disaster. Nicotine gets essentially none of those efforts and remains the most heavily used addicting drug."

Something called "nicotine replacement therapy" is by far the dominant stop smoking treatment available. Aren't nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products such as the patches smokers stick to their skin addiction-knowledgeable? Please read "Nicotine Addiction Unenlightened" on the Truth for Healthy Living website.

Will you help or hurt? Dr. Lovelace urgently requests that everyone who reads this go ahead and do what he or she can to help raise awareness of the "desperate need for enlightened clinical addiction specialists to treat nicotine addiction: the neglected most deadly 80 percent of all drug addiction. Failing to act and appropriately hurts our children."

To help increase that awareness, he suggests doing things such as forwarding this press release to state boards that license clinical addiction specialists, clinical social workers, clinical counselors, and clinical psychologists. "Also, please forward it to university graduate schools that train social workers, psychologists, clinical counselors, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and medical doctors." "And please send this news release to helping professionals you know."

Richard offers a disclaimer: "I am not exposing any of this to benefit clinical addiction specialists. I'm not licensed as one or beholding to them. I am a mostly-retired licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and nicotine-addicted parent (thankful to be in recovery) who has for nearly 40 years cared about and helped adults addicted to nicotine: truly our nation's most deadly addiction. The fact that I recognize and tell you that the essential cause of chronic smoking is nicotine addiction rather than the nonexistent 'tobacco addiction' shows I'm not defending tobacco or smoking."

News provider: This and all other content are intended solely for educational purposes and are the research findings and clinical insights of Richard T. Lovelace, PhD, MSW (master of social work) and not Winston Clinical Associates. Thank you.

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