Nicotine Gum
Nicotine gum is a product made in the form of chewing gum to deliver nicotine to the chewer’s body. The gum is taken as an aid for nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). The latter is a process for helping smokers to quit smoking tobacco (Hyland et al., 2005). The patient chews the nicotine gum, and the nicotine substrate is delivered to his or her bloodstream through absorption via the tissues in the mouth. Since the nicotine present in the gum takes some time before reaching the brain, the “hit” is thus less rapid, thus making it different from the cigarette. Further, the nicotine delivered by the gum is much less than what a cigarette provides. Nicotine gum is sold over the counter, and are currently available in developed region line in the US and Europe. Nicotine gum is just being introduced in India, thus can be termed as still relatively new. The gums come in different colors, sizes, flavors with the common nicotine gum brands being Nicotex and Nicorette.The dosage is prescribed based on the user’s smoking habits.
India
Nicotine gums are gaining popularity across the globe, including India. As of today, they are still a little expensive, especially in India, but it is expected that with time they will be relatively priced affordably to the consumers. There is a need for the Indian National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority to subsidize nicotine gums to increase access and promote usage amongst the locals in the country. There are about 121 million smokers in India (Mooney, Leventhal, & Hatsukami, 2006). The WHO reports that India has over 12% of the world smokers, with over 10 million Indians dying every year as a result of smoking tobacco. Therefore, no matter how it is smoked, tobacco is dangerous to human health since there are no beneficial substances in it, from carbon monoxide, tar to acetone. Despite the mentioned high figures, the Indian government has not considered NRT (nicotine replacement therapy) in its treatment programs despite being labeled as a lifesaver. Those interested in quitting smoking habits have to use their own money to purchase nicotine gum to assist them in quitting. Only 2% of the core smokers manage to quit. The Indian 19 tobacco cessation centers report that there is a quit rate of 14%. As such, to make it more effective, nicotine gum should be used coupled with counselling sessions. The major reason why nicotine is not yet popular in India is the cost factor.
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Importance to Product
Nicotine gum is useful because it helps tobacco smoking addicts to replace their cigarettes with nicotine gum (Silagy et al., 1996). The gum is a very important part of a treatment plan for the smoking addicts program, which includes counseling, support, and change in behavior. Smoking tobacco causes chronic diseases like cancer, lung diseases, and heart problems. Stopping smoking is part of improving personal health. Therefore, nicotine gum is a perfect way to begin the journey of replacing nicotine and eventually coming to quit.
It isn’t very easy to successfully quitting to smoke. Most of the time quitting involves very expensive mechanisms like going for rehabilitation over very long periods of time, which may not even help all the cases (Tang, Law, & Wald, 1994). Nicotine gum is a recommendable solution because it could be affordable to many. Nicotine gum as a nicotine replacement therapy slowly delivers nicotine to the patient body. Some users report not liking the peppery gum taste in their mouth. Others still fail to adhere to the manufacturers’ recommendations of chewing it as a gum. It is recommendable that the user rests it on the cheek for some time.
Application of Hofstede’s classification
Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions is a framework that utilizes several measurements for portraying how the impact of a culture practiced by a society practices impacts on the values that the societal members embrace. The dimensions further relate the values to behavior by the use of factorial analysis based structure. Culture is an essential facet when conducting international business. It dramatically affects the firms seeking to expand overseas because it shed light on how the product or service is viewed by the different cultures in the new markets. The nicotine gum has been positioned as an over-the-counter (OTC) product with Indian pharma companies selling the gum via the chemists. The product is not very prevalent in India as it is in other countries such as the US, where it is regarded as a long-term NRT.
Notably, the Indian market is a unique one from the US and European markets. To successfully market nicotine gum in India, there is a need to consider the cultural needs of the Indian market. For India, there is a high level of PDI (power distance index), because the people conform to hierarchical structures (Stead et al., 2012). This means that entering this market would require charitable services. There is a need to consider a significant level of distribution of the gums for educational purposes. Indians also have high levels of individualism. People refer to themselves more as “we”, with wider extended family groups. It would be hard penetrating such a market without engaging the already established businesses.
References
Hyland, A., Rezaishiraz, H., Giovino, G., Bauer, J. E., & Cummings, K. M. (2005). Over-the-
counter availability of nicotine replacement therapy and smoking cessation. Nicotine & Tobacco Research , 7 (4), 547-555.
Mooney, M. E., Leventhal, A. M., & Hatsukami, D. K. (2006). Attitudes and knowledge
about nicotine and nicotine replacement therapy. Nicotine & Tobacco Research , 8 (3), 435-446.
Silagy, C., Mant, D., Fowler, G., & Lancaster, T. (1996). The effect of nicotine replacement
therapy on smoking cessation. Tobacco Addiction Module of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews .
Stead, L. F., Perera, R., Bullen, C., Mant, D., Hartmann ‐ Boyce, J., Cahill, K., & Lancaster, T.
(2012). Nicotine replacement therapy for smoking cessation. Cochrane database of systematic reviews , (11).
Tang, J. L., Law, M., & Wald, N. (1994). How effective is nicotine replacement therapy in
helping people to stop smoking? Bmj , 308 (6920), 21-26.
