Can a necklace help people quit vaping?

The Spinoff

16 hours ago

From Temu knockoffs to high-end designer pieces, mindful breathing accessories are being adopted by vapers keen to kick the habit. So why does blowing into a glorified whistle on a chain appeal, and does it have any effect?
When Skene Bennellick was in high school in Auckland in the early 2000s, he hit on a business idea. He would buy cigarettes from the dairy, bring them to school and sell them to his peers for a markup. 'I was so naughty,' he says. Eventually, someone asked him why he didn't smoke too, so he started forcing himself to light cigarettes. It was not pleasant, but pretty soon, he was addicted. When e-cigarettes emerged, he switched to using them instead, planning to wean off the nicotine, but found himself with a new addictive habit instead.
What finally helped him to quit was figuring out the part of the habit he was stuck in: the physical act of lifting something to his lips and breathing through it. While visiting the UK a few years ago, he bought a mindful breathing necklace: like a whistle on a chain, but one that didn't make noise, and encouraged him to breathe slowly in and out.
'The decision to quit is a spur-of-the-moment thing – we thought it would be good for people to have the tools they need available immediately, from New Zealand,' Bennellick says. He now sells similar necklaces for $25 each, branded as 'Inhalace', a portmanteau of 'inhale' and 'necklace'. He runs the business in addition to his work as an AI software consultant, and has also developed a free email course for people trying to quit, as well as an online support group.
With a raft of new legislation coming in to ban disposable vapes and monitor the presence of vape shops near schools, it's clear the New Zealand government takes the popularity of vaping seriously.
'Vaping became something cool, with lots of young people puffing throughout the day,' says Chris Bullen, a professor at the University of Auckland who studies how people quit smoking. But alongside regulations which make it harder to take up vaping, people are finding their own solutions, like mindful breathing necklaces.
'We did not expect people trying to quit vaping to buy this,' says Adam Bazzard, manager of Sensory Sam, a shop selling tools and toys for neurodivergent kids, like chewable necklaces, weighted blankets and fidget toys. They also sell mindful breathing straws. 'We introduced it a few years ago – it's the equivalent of blowing into a paper bag when you have a panic attack, forcing you to take long, slow breaths,' Bazzard says. He thinks the majority of customers buying the necklaces now, perhaps 60%, are using it to replace the habit of vaping. 'It's sort of incognito – it looks like an ordinary piece of jewellery,' he says.
The search for products to help quit nicotine isn't new. Vapes, or e-cigarettes, were introduced as a way for people to stop smoking cigarettes, but the well-documented problem is that they're addictive and harmful too. Before vapes, there was nicotine gum (developed to help Swedish aviation and submarine crews who were addicted to cigarettes but couldn't light up in enclosed spaces) and nicotine patches. There's now also nicotine mouth and nasal sprays, inhalers and lozenges. As a quit smoking tool, none of these prescription products have taken off in the way vaping has. 'Something about them being medical devices means they're not cool,' Bullen says. 'Because [vapes] are not as regulated as pharmaceutical products, they can be churned out.'
The advent of petite disposable vapes, which Bullen describes as 'if Apple got hold of an espresso machine', made vapes into more of a lifestyle product, compared to earlier models sloshing with nicotine-laced liquid. In New Zealand, these took off before there was much regulation around the products.
While New Zealand's smoking rates have been dropping overall, it's not clear whether the widespread take-up of vaping has been a direct contributor to the statistics. 'Smoking rates have been decreasing, while there's a spike in vaping in 2019, once disposable vapes became available,' Bullen says. For certain demographics, like Māori women, it seems like vaping has often replaced smoking. 'People wonder whether switching from one method of nicotine delivery to another is really a good thing,' Bullen says. '[But] getting nicotine from a vape is less harmful.'
It's not harmless, though, so needless to say, it's better to not get addicted to nicotine products at all. Standard nicotine quitting products have been developed through randomised controlled trials; there has to be evidence backing up their use. That evidence doesn't exist for products like breathing necklaces. 'These can't be sold in medical centres,' Bennellick says; there's no robust scientific evidence that it works yet, just anecdotes.
Bennellick has offered discount codes to some schools and will send free products to people who sign up to the email course on the Inhalace website. He's also looking into a prototype using scented cotton, to increase the resistance as you breathe and emulate the feeling of flavour from a vape, and the Inhalace email campaign offers advice for slowly tapering down usage.
'Having something you fiddle with in your hand, breathing techniques for relaxation – it isn't expensive, and it might be useful for people deciding to quit,' Bullen says. 'Some people can quit nicotine by deciding to give it up, but for lots of people, prescription medication [such as patches, sprays and lozenges] doubles their chance of success.' Mindful breathing techniques and other meditation has been shown to reduce short-term smoking craving; unlike some other quitting strategies, it's affordable and doesn't have side effects. The Inhalace website points out that even if you can't afford a product, some of the same strategies can be used with a standard straw.
While some customers have been disappointed – essentially because they expected to receive something other than a particularly shiny, oddly-shaped metal straw – Benellick says that many people have told him their new necklaces have helped. 'Now and then I do have a puff of a cigarette but it's not as enjoyable as it used to be,' reads one of the customer emails he forwards to The Spinoff. 'Thank goodness the Inhalace came into my life.' 'It basically tricks your brain into thinking you have a vape,' reads another comment on the Inhalace Facebook page; the product is largely digitally advertised on the platform.
For now, using shiny metal necklaces to quit vaping remains niche, and products with an addictive chemical built in do have an advantage in take-up. But from Bennellick's budget-friendly version to the Sensory Sam tool to a $150 breathing straw inspired by taonga pūoro to the Temu knockoffs, it's clear the desire to quit nicotine has wide appeal. With disposable vapes no longer available, it's a good time to be selling sleek tools to breathe through.