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by truculation 3002 days ago
I'm not sure that abstinence works. Btw you know of course that many boys are put on officially-sanctioned drugs at school? Should we put them on those drugs instead?
2 comments

Are you trying to segue into a discussion on over prescription of ADHD medication? I don't really see what the one has to do with the other but sure, they are both problems. But you can't just say two things are drugs so they are equal. I take a drug first thing every morning for my allergies for instance.

Edit: You edited your reply after I started. I think abstinence works fine for something like nicotine. Unlike say sex humans don't have any innate craving for nicotine, I've never consumed it in my entire life and I don't feel like I've missed out on anything.

It's because you've never consumed it that you don't miss it.
I think you are being unclear here. I took your remark on abstinence to be a reference to abstinence only sex education, as I think most readers did. If you are asking how we can help teens with a nicotine addiction to break it then there are a variety of ways that have been shown to work in helping someone break addiction, so schools, parents, and healthcare providers can support those.
The article begs to differ. They fear a whole new generation of nicotine addicts. Hence my question.

Btw, do you know if schools in the U.S. sell sweets? (My school used to have a 'tuck shop' for this purpose).

I don't see how the article disagrees with what I just said. I really think you are being unclear here in what you are trying to say. Are you asking specifically what should schools due to assist nicotine users to quit, or something else?
Abstinence isn't effective? For sex maybe. For smoking it is, though. It's the most successful method of quitting.
Yes but what's the success rate?
The success rate of never smoking/vaping in the first place is 100%.

The success rate of quitting is really up to the individual, much like weight loss or other self improvement stuff. But even if it's hard it's the thing you should do.

I'm really not sure what you're arguing. "Quitting is hard and a lot of people fail so .. don't quit." That's some lame mentality right there.

>"Quitting is hard and a lot of people fail so .. don't quit."

No, I asked: what should vaping be replaced with?

If children are smoking, and they're cutting down using vaping, then you don't replace it, or you replace it with another smoking cessation method.

If they're not smoking you don't want them to start vaping.

Gum seems to be fairly traditional.

Obviously the goal is "not inhaling things that aren't air".

>Gum seems to be fairly traditional

Do you mean nicotine gum? Isn't that bad for your gums? Or do you mean plain chewing gum?

> The success rate of never smoking/vaping in the first place is 100%.

If it were, then nobody would start smoking.

This is like saying the rhythm method has a 100% success rate. It's only true if you do it perfectly. Nobody does.