Coronavirus: France Bans Online Sales Of Nicotine Products

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Fri Apr 24, 2020, 03:53 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: BBC News

France has banned the online sale of nicotine products and limited their sale in pharmacies, after researchers suggested that nicotine may play a role in protecting against coronavirus.

The new rules cover products like nicotine gum and patches, designed to help people stop smoking.

Last week, data from a Paris hospital indicated that smokers were statistically less likely to be admitted for treatment for Covid-19. Trials are set to continue in France.

France has reported nearly 22,000 coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the outbreak earlier this year. The French government says people will only be allowed to buy one month's supply of these products...


Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52415793

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The Telegraph, 'Smokers 'four times less likely' to contract Covid-19, prompting nicotine patch trials on patients,' April 23

https://democraticunderground.com/10142477891

[enid602]

1. Nicotine

The nicotine pills only work if you first soak them on Lysol.

[denem]

2. What a bunch of stupid fucks.

[Maggiemayhem]

3. I find that hard to believe that tobacco damaged lungs could fight the virus more efficiently

Sounds as credible as the Placquinil cure and don’t take ibuprofen.

[dhol82]

4. Agree

[Recursion]

17. It's been a pretty consistent finding, though

It's even been floated as one possible reason Germany's outbreak doesn't seem to be hospitalizing nearly as many people, due to Germany's significantly higher smoking rate than France, Italy, or Spain.

We still don't know all the stuff nicotine does to the body.

[EllieBC]

5. So they banned the sale of smoking cessation products?

I guess they don’t want people to quit.

[Aristus]

7. Nicotine use, even in patch form, is detrimental to lung function.

Nicotine is a very powerful and effective vasoconstrictor, including the blood vessels in the lungs, which can make it difficult to breath.

That's the consideration, not whether people who have no intention of quitting get upset because there's a moratorium on patch sales.

[mopinko]

8. so interesting tho.

i wonder if that vascular shut down makes it hard for the virus to get in. weird shit.

[Aristus]

9. No. The virus can settle in the lung parenchyma (the functional lung surface) just by

breathing in. Which is why the spreading of the virus through droplets is the primary route of infection.

[EllieBC]

10. I'm so glad we don't treat other addictions this way.

So strange how smokers are treated so harshly yet other addicts we are quick to want to help with harm reduction.

Patches, gum, lozenges are all harm reduction.

[Aristus]

11. If used as directed.

And as a practitioner of clinical medicine, I hardly ever see them used as directed.

My first year in practice, all of my smoking patients came to me asking for nicotine patches. And, because I want my patients to quit smoking, I wrote prescriptions with wild abandon. "Here you go! Go your way and smoke no more!"

They kept coming back to me for refills. And at first, I scratched my head over it. You don't get refills of nicotine patches; you use them, you quit smoking, you don't use them anymore.

To show you how naïve I was, it took me about a year to realize they weren't interested in quitting smoking; they were just hitting me up for free nicotine.

So I decided to stop prescribing them.

Then I realized that that was needlessly obstructive. So I started prescribing them again. But with one caveat: no refills. If you want to quit, use these patches and follow the protocol with the tapered, decreasing nicotine strength as directed. But no refills. if you want to quit, quit. If you don't want to quit, I can prescribe patches for someone who will use them as directed.

[EllieBC]

13. I believe the UK NHS has said they can be used longer.

And in most places they are OTC now anyway.

No one asks heroin addicts if they really want to quit when it comes to addiction. No one asks obese people if they really wan to reconsider their food choices. No one will do those things if they unless they want to be crucified. But smokers? Fair game. And I’m not even a smoker, it’s just really obvious.

[Aristus]

14. Not me. I probably refer heroin addicts to treatment 12 or 13 times a year.

I always ask them if they really want to quit.

Today, I told a kid in his twenties, weighing 300 pounds and suffering from sleep apnea, that if he ditches the three Cokes per day, he can lose some of that weight and feel better.

In none of these cases did I speak of a desire to crucify. I spoke out of love. I joke about it with them, but I speak out of love. When I urge my smokers to quit, I even tell them: "It's how I show my love."

My very first day of P.A. School, my adult medicine instructor said medicine is a science. But it's also an art. And it truly is.

It's not always pretty, and it can piss people off sometimes. But on balance, it changes us for the better.

[Recursion]

18. They're nationalizing the nicotine gum supply

This article doesn't explain it very well. They're limiting the sales of the patches and gum from pharmacies to prevent a run on it. You can now buy one pack at a time, whereas previously there were no limits.

[Ligyron]

6. It said smokers less likely to be admitted, not users of nicotine products.

Maybe it's all that nasty tar or dozens of other toxins in the smoke those little viruses can't handle.

Bonus points for remembering Morticia Adams asking, "Mind if I smoke?" before engulfing herself in said smoke.

[moriah]

12. Or maybe the smokers, knowing they were at higher risk of complications...

... decided it was smarter to follow all social distancing guidelines even if they weren't elderly, vs kick the habit.

Or maybe people don't like the smell of tobacco on their clothes, so stay further away from them in supermarkets.

Correlation does not necessarily indicate causation.

[Ligyron]

15. True, some smokers can smell pretty bad.

Some are like Pig Pen in the Peanuts comic strip, walking around with a nasty little cloud surrounding them. People do tend to avoid such people which just automatically produces a safety zone and unwittingly establishes social distance guidelines.