In May of 2006, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Chantix (varenicline tartrate) whose primary purpose the inhibition of receptors for nicotine in the human brain. Chantix has a two-fold role in the brain, it locates itself on the nicotine receptors in the brain and distributes results like nicotine, but at the same time, Chantix prevents nicotine itself from attaching to the nicotine receptors. The approach means no withdrawal symptoms occur and if the smoker goes back to smoking, they will not get the ”high? feeling which nicotine provides otherwise.

Chantix is produced and marketed by Pfizer while Glaxo Wellcome makes Zyban, a non nicotine smoking cessation medication also approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Zyban is the same drug as that marketed as an antidepressant aid under the trade moniker of Wellbutrin. Originally the FDA did not approve the drug at all, but it was reintroduced as an anti-depressant, then as a smoking cessation aid, when doctors noted that many of their patients using Wellbutrin were reducing smoking levels significantly.

Nicotine gums, patches and lozenges are also drug delivery systems for nicotine. The panel is still out regarding whether the use of these drugs can be properly considered as smoking cessation tools. Some would argue that changing delivery modes from smoke to oral ingestion of nicotine is not really solving the problem.

Long term success rates for smoking cessation drugs seem to be mixed. For one thing, it’s difficult to do scientific studies when the control group can tell whether or not they are receiving nicotine because of the physiological effects. Those in the control group usually refused to go on with the test.

Many people are more afraid of the cessation drugs that they are of the nicotine in the cigarettes; others just don’t have the motivation to quit yet. They still are convinced that smoking is pleasurable.

Until the proper preliminaries of determination to quit, understanding why one is smoking and why one should quit are internalized, smoking cessation drugs will not accomplish the task. The best success rate for permanently quitting smoking seems to still be quitting cold turkey, and that takes determination.

If the withdrawal symptoms are feared to the extent that quitting is forestalled, then probably the best choice is to use a mixture of methods, including that of smoking cessation drugs. In this way, the benefits of being smoke free will be applicable sooner.

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