Innovation at its best: a cigarette to help quit smoking

Hajduné Borsos, Adrienne

Keywords: tobacco, abuse, health risk, lobelia, economical lifestyle

This paper describes an effort to bring about a non-smoking society. It focuses on a new product - the development of which was funded from application grants - which allows smokers to get rid of their smoking habit without the negative physiological experiences usually associated with the process. The results: health consciousness with a significant benefit to the economy! The underlying idea – i.e. that lobelia imitates the effects of nicotine – came from professor Éva Szőke. The innovation based on this idea then went through the phases of raw material production and the production of the “0” batch, with the following standardised degustation confirming the underlying hypothesis.
The “study preparation” should be classified an herbal preparation - possibly under the apt name of “ANTINIKOTEX”. It is recommended to categorise it under “products promoting public health” to encourage its adoption and to avoid taxation as an excise good.
A representative survey has shown that every third of the 3 million smokers in Hungary would be happy to quit if they could get rid of their craving for nicotine without emotional and mental hurdles. Annual tobacco product sales in Hungary is close to 500 billion Forint. If one million consumers could get rid of their addiction for good, non-smoking families would have nearly 170 billion more to spend as they wish. It would also have public health benefits and demand fewer victims - even though tax revenue from smoking would also fall by one-third.

Full article