As something of a heavy smoker at the moment... I've got mixed thoughts about this. Directly attacking nicotine seems like a relatively safe way to go about it -- meaning it would risk few side effects other than forcing someone through 'withdrawal' -- but that's still going to force someone through withdrawal.
A benefit would, I assume, be that you could smoke your way through withdrawal with this technique, which might cushion the blow... but since "counseling" was involved to achieve the success rate, it's hard to tell if that aspect of it came into play.
Meanwhile, just reducing the 'addictive potential' does seem appropriate, but this would suggest that around 30% of people would care to keep it up anyway... (I think I'd actually prefer a society where kids were immunized to resist the effects, reducing the cultural 'risk' of the plant in the first place, while preserving the 'right' to casual use for whatever reasons... but that's a heck of an ethical problem itself.)
[Interesting thing is that, here in the US, they've jacked up the price, penalized the tobacco companies, and started adding further 'sin taxes' just to balance state budgets... but nicotine gum is now nonprescription, and -- hmm, I was going to say it costs more than just continuing to smoke, but apparently they've jacked up brand-name cigarettes to the cost of the gum. This sounds fair, but jacks up the 'opportunity cost' of trying it if you're not really sure you want to quit.]
