Smokers with a New Year's resolution to kick the habit have been offered an alluring new quit solution - smoke your way out.
An Auckland University study has revealed that addicts who try giving up with the help of low-nicotine cigarettes have more success than those who use nicotine replacement therapy patches, gum or lozenges alone.
During the six-week trial with replacement therapy, half of those enlisted were also offered packs of Quest brand cigarettes, which are so low in nicotine that researcher Dr Natalie Walker said they could never get any "kick" out of them.
By lighting one up, smokers were partaking in the ritual of smoking - "putting something in their mouth and feeling the smoke in their mouth and feeling it come down into their chest" - but didn't get the buzz in return.
"The good thing about it is that people naturally stop using them ... after six weeks, or even earlier for some people," she told the New Zealand Herald.
Dr Walker labelled the results "exciting" but admitted this was a controversial solution as the packs were equally as harmful as other cigarettes, just less addictive.
She hoped the brand, not sold commercially in New Zealand, could be made available for quitters as part of the Government's goal to have New Zealand smokefree by 2025.
NZN