E-Cigarettes And Nicotine Gum Don't Help People Quit Smoking, But Free Money Does. No Kidding.

Smokers trying to kick the habit are often told to switch to electronic cigarettes, or try nicotine gum or patches.

Sometimes it¡¯s even suggested that you grab a piece of chocolate every time you want a smoke. But as it turns out, the best motivation to really go clean is money.

A study published today in The New England Journal of Medicine had researchers studying the attempts of over 6,000 smokers trying to quit. They gave groups of them combinations of different tools to do this, including free nicotine patches, free e-cigarettes, motivational texts, free medication and a total of $600.

At the end of the study six months later, only 1.3 percent of the subjects had managed to quit smoking. Of these, it appears that people who got money did much better than other groups, with those who received only e-cigarettes and medication not being able to stay on the wagon.

According to studies last year, at least one in every ten deaths across the world is thanks to smoking. In addition, at least half of these deaths occur largely in four countries; US, China, Russia, and India. Clearly, it¡¯s important to understand what could help people that want to quit more easily achieve their goal. Unfortunately, even this research isn¡¯t final.

E-cigarettes are clearly not a magic bullet that can help anyone quit, but they¡¯re not useless either. Different people require different methods of support. What this latest study does show however is that money is a strong motivator, as evidenced by the fact that smokers who received the money were two or three times more likely to quit.

So i guess if you want your friend to quit smoking, all you have to do is set up a trust fund that pays them as long as they stay nicotine-free. No big deal.