Well, given that he posted it seven and a half years ago, and is no longer with us, it’s doubtful that we’ll ever know.
IIRC he had a habit of googling stuff and posting very quickly.
In this case, I’d say it really doesn’t matter where it came from if the information was good.
Oh, wait, ya know what, it was probably to help people quit smoking before having wisdom teeth pulled.
When I used the patches, I noticed that the surface area of the different dosages was exactly proportional to the designated mg of nicotine. Since they were all designed to act over the same time period, logic tells you that they’re all the same, except for the surface area, which controls dosage.
Anything else is marketing BS to get you to buy smaller patches for the same price as larger ones. Cut them.
P.S. They don’t work very well. The method to quit smoking with the best proven results is cold turkey. That doesn’t sell well, though.
Also, I quit for a year (to the day) using this BS book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Easy-Way-Stop-Smoking/dp/1402718616
Then I decided not smoking sucks, and started again. Now I’m happy. Whew.
I’ve known several heavy smokers who woke up during the night to have a cigarette. They couldn’t sleep a whole night without being woken by their need for nicotine.
No, logic does not tell you that. Intuition, maybe, but not logic. There are all sorts of reasons (see above about the materials being squooshed into a thin layer) for patch manufacturing differ with dosage.
The patch works extraordinarily well for some people (hello there!) and not for others.
But honestly, I miss smoking 
The downside is that, at least when I was using the patch, they cost twice as much as a carton pack of cigarettes and lasted seven days as opposed to ten.
The generic Walgreen’s patches are cheaper and just as effective as NicoDerm.
after a couple of weeks of wearing the step 2 patch, i just tried cutting it in half because i wanted to lower the dosage. well, i don’t know how they did it but apparently that doesn’t work. it made me feel like i was going to puke and fall over… i wouldn’t recommend anyone to try that. i guess i will just try stopping all together since the physical cravings have gone away.
Re-re-animated participants:
How many zombies here quit (and stayed quit) smoking? How many give credit to the patch?
We’re smoke-free in the Devil household, and must give humongous credit to the patch. It was ‘us’ that quit—but the patch kept the level of community homicides down to a small number. Anyone else have success?
It took three goes, but the patches eventually worked for me.
I blame the first two failures to extreme stress. The third time found me in calmer times. The patches took care of the chemical needs and allowed me to focus on the habitual addictions related to my smoking. I am very much a creature of habit, and cigarettes had come to punctuate my day in a regular and rigid way. Being free of the chemical urge, I could learn to fight the OCD-like urge.
I have been smoke-free for nearly two and a half years now. 
For the record, I did NOT cut any patches in half. Also, the price went down with the size of the patch. Just saying.
I think what it comes down to is each person is different and needs to handle their addiction differently. In my case, using gum or lozenges would not have worked. I’d be taking those at regular intervals instead of smoking and end up nowhere. I actually proved this with an e-cigarette. It supplanted the real thing, but I kept on going. Eventually I reverted back to the real thing. Others can use these quit-aids and successfully work themselves free. It just all depends.
Those who quit cold turkey are free to, and should be proud of themselves. However, I’m tired of hearing how anyone can do it and they just need more willpower. Being that I’ve heard nicotine addiction being called worse than cocaine addiction, I question that. Maybe some people have an easier time of it, but a lot don’t. I went cold turkey for nine days once. I started again after a moderately stressful day left me in the fetal position shaking and miserable. Having it out of your system doesn’t quiet the monsters craving nicotine in your brain, it makes them SCREAM. Things to consider…
Of course you can cut them in half.
These days patches have moved on so much since the fluid/gel construction and if you cut one in half nothing toward will happen i.e. it won’t ‘leak’ (certainly not any that I’ve come across anyway!).
It’s a simple scientific fact:
25 mg patch
Surface area: 22.5 cm2
Release period 16 hours
The patch releases EVENLY over the patch’s whole surface area.
Therefore cutting a 25mg patch in half will simply release 12.5mg of nicotine** in that same 16hr period**.
Some may think you will get ‘twice the rate’ of absorption - not the case
*Think of it this way… *
Cut one in half and wear one on each arm - full patch split into two - exactly the same effect as designed - full 25g in 16hrs. You don’t get double the hit!
So, instead, just wear one half patch and keep the other for the next day, easy and obvious.
SAVE yourself a small fortune and buy the strongest patches and cut them to your needs.
Be aware of the ‘active’ surface area - so halves and quarters are probably best as you then don’t have any wasted areas that are only glue.
:mad: ***Anything else is marketing BS to get you to buy smaller patches for the same price as larger ones. Cut them. *** :mad:
(PS. Used this method myself VERY successfully to completely quit from 40 a day)
Patches plus nicotine lozenges*, coming up to the third anniversary of my last smoke.
*In much the same way as you definitely CAN cut the patches into smaller doses, you can break/crumble the lozenges.
maybe if you wrapped half the patch in something which would block the nicotine from diffusing through, like clingfilm or tape (and then swap the covering to the other side for the next day)
That’s a good idea, but if the active ingredients can flow or diffuse from one half to the other, you might get a larger does the first day. You could experiment with covering slightly more than half the patch, to counter that. Or you could fold the patch in half, and hope the crease blocks flow from one half to the other.
I’ve tried using a strip of clear tape, shiny side to the patch, through the middle or across the outsides of the patch. It works ok, but I find the glue doesn’t always wear well enough to stay put the second time, even if half of it is fresh the next day. I don’t know how impermeable it is either, so after a few hours you may be getting more nicotine than you planned.
I’ve had decent results with halving the transparent gel-reservoir patches using a particular method:
-
heat a thin, blunt straight-edge metal instrument like a steel ruler or putty knife on the stove or something. You’ve probably got a lighter you shouldn’t be carrying any more anyway, but if you use it just be careful to heat the tool evenly and not to leave soot all over it. Or blow up a lighter in your hand. I hear that’s unpleasant. The metal only needs to be 300-400 degrees F, so if it starts to change color it’s too hot.
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Leaving the backing on, fold the patch over a raised object to force the gel out of the area to be cut
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Stand the tool on it’s corner just below the fold and rock it down onto the patch to seal the patch’s backing down to the layer underneath the gel. Push down hard enough to deform the backing, but if you go straight through the whole stack you risk welding the backing to the top layers and tearing it open again when you peel it off.
You shouldn’t have to to tear or cut the patch apart, and if you can squeeze the fill out of your seam you shouldn’t use it. That rate-limiting membrane needs to be the only route out of the patch for the nicotine and whatever they use to make it permeate your skin.
The rationale here is that the different dosages of patch do seem to be cut to size from a single sheet with a hot die (think cookie cutter) in manufacture. I’ve never taken the factory tour, but look really closely at the original outside edges. I don’t know how they make these otherwise.
Your mileage may vary, of course. All the risk is yours, so be careful.