14 DAY TRIAL // Quitting smoking is as tough as renouncing no matter what drug: the nicotine craving is deeply wired to your neurons. When Chantix entered the market in 2006, it appeared as a miracle drug devoid of side effects.
"The pill took care of the actual addiction, the physical part of it. The other thing was just the habit of not sitting down and lighting up after dinner, when you have a drink, whatever. I broke a few habits and triggers, if you will, that caused me to smoke. It worked wonders." Jim Pierce, an ex-smoker by over an year, who had been smoking 1.5 packs daily, told KDKA. Quitting is not just about health.
"One of the things the computer program does is tracks the money that you've saved and it was almost at $2,000 dollars. Now, that's a scuba diving trip for me and that's not a bad way to trade it off", Pierce continued.
In 3 months of Chantix intake, 50 % of the smokers quitted; by 6 months, the number raised to 70 %. The drug acts on the brain's nicotine receptors, but persists longer than the nicotine, eliminating the craving symptoms.
"This medicine goes there and stabilizes the receptors so that people aren't constantly in and out of withdrawal. Chantix works really well for the brain disease part, the receptor changes. If you don't deal with the habit parts of addiction, you're only going to get half as good a response", said Dr. Carl Sullivan, an addiction specialist at WVU Hospitals.
Specialists admit that nausea and bad dreams are common side effects of Chantix, especially in the case of lighter smokers, but the violent behavior induced by the drug is rather a fiction triggered by the death of the Dallas musician Carter Albrecht, who supposedly turned into a fit of range after consuming five alcoholic drinks and taking Chantix. Albrecht was shot dead while trying to break into a neighboring house, after beating his girlfriend. His family blamed all that on Chantix.
Now FDA has to investigate if the drug is indeed connected to suicidal and violent behavior.
But, specialists defend the drug.
"I have so many patients who get drunk, get angry, get jealous, get paranoid, blank out, do crazy things, shoot, fight, scream, and yell. And to blame it on Chantix seems to me to be completely absurd," said Sullivan.
"The big challenge I'm having is getting people to follow through with the prescription for at least the first 12 weeks. They stop it after the first prescription. After four weeks. And then they relapse into smoking. That happens all the time", continued Sullivan.
Some say people's violence is because of aggravating psychiatric diseases connected to nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Still, the side effects have been observed in Chantix users, who have not stopped smoking, and in ex-smokers with no record of mental diseases.