Redrant: With the light smoking Obama Barak is, in the parlance a "chipper" with a few cigarettes per day not the pack a day of most smokers (like I was before I quit). In earlier interviews Obama said he has using the "patch" and his wife was heavily pressuring him to quit. Those are the three factors that generally help in quitting. Every campaign rally I have ever seen has been non-smoking, even thirty years ago. "Chippers" can generally quit fairly easily with proper motivation, especially a goal that requires them to be a non smoker. (I cite a former female friend who wanted to winter in Antarctica). It is odd, that Obama can't quit completely, even with the "patch". He obviously has the "motive" to quit and has pharmaceutical help. His staff can easily limit his contact with second hand smoke if that is a "trigger" (it was for me when I quit in the early 1970's).


It might be an "addiction personality" at work. Obama Barak cited past heavy drug use including using crack cocaine.

Greg Lang

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/10/08/2008-10-08_firedup_obama_still_smokes_a_cigarette_n.html

Fired-up Obama still smokes a cigarette now and then

BY MICHAEL SAUL
DAILY NEWS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Wednesday, October 8th 2008, 11:26 AM

Barack Obama says he sometimes treats himself to a cigarette on the campaign trail.

Obama, who supposedly quit smoking at his wife's insistence in 2006, told Men's Health magazine he has bummed a few cigarettes during the White House race.

"But I figure, seeing as I'm running for President, I need to cut myself a little slack," Obama, 47, told the magazine.

Obama said he hasn't experienced "huge withdrawal symptoms" in part because he smoked only seven or eight cigarettes a day at his peak.

In June, when asked about his last puff during a news conference at a St. Louishospital, Obama sputtered, "I don't remember, but it was probably, it's been a while, you know, months."