by Leonard Larsen

About the author: Leonard Larsen is a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service.

If cigarette smokers—real pack-a-day-plus people who’ve smoked for many years—need a nicotine nasal spray to help them quit smoking, they probably aren’t ready to quit and they won’t quit.

The notion is as foolish as nicotine patches or nicotine gum to make smokers quit or magic charms or $25 sessions in crowded motel rooms while quack psychologists try to get your mind off smoking.

An ultimate foolishness is that the nicotine spray now comes recommended by non-smokers and never-been-smokers at the Food and Drug Administration who seem more intent on giving cigarette smokers crutches for their “addiction” than enough backbone to just quit.

Demonizing the Industry

The new nicotine...