What is Nicotine replacement therapy?
[[File:Nicoderm.JPG|thumb|right|A nicotine patch]] The [[nicotine]] in [[cigarette]]s and other [[tobacco]] products makes people [[dependency|dependent]]. When they quit, they will get [[Drug withdrawal|withdrawal symptoms]]. '''Nicotine replacement therapy''' ('''NRT''') is there to reduce the dependency symptoms. This is usually done by delivering nicotine (or a substance very similar to it) in other ways. Common methods include ''nicotine patches'' and [[chewing gum]]s with nicotine in them. [[Cigarette]]s are responsible for the deaths of about 5 million people each year.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/|title=WHO site on tobacco}}</ref> These people are not killed by the nicotine in the cigarette, but by other substances in tobacco smoke such as [[carbon monoxide]] and [[tar]]<nowiki/>s. NRT delivers nicotine to the smoker's brain in a much slower way than cigarettes do. It helps to damp down the urges to smoke that most smokers have in the early days and weeks after quitting, rather than remove them totally. It gives the smoker the chance to break smoking [[cues]] in their daily lives, and might provide a more comfortable exit from the smoking habit. NRT however is best used with some form of support, ideally from someone who knows something about smoking cessation. In 2005 the [[Committee on the Safety of Medicines]] recommended that NRT be given to [[Pregnancy|pregnant]] smokers and to [[Adolescence|adolescent]] smokers.{{Fact|date=April 2009}} Findings from a recent [[Cochrane review]] of [[controlled trials]] testing NRT products (Stead et al. 2008) showed that smokers using NRT were 1.5 to 2 times more likely to have stopped smoking at followup than those in the [[placebo]] or control treatment condition. ==Criticism== Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco products so there is a chance when using NRT products to become addicted to those products. NRT products are safer then smoking tobacco. NRT products are generally expensive, sometimes even more so then cigarettes, so a