Rule number one: Never substitute nicotine for anything else, needless to say that substituting nicotine with nicotine is a complete and absurd mess. This is the truth for nicotine patches. You do not need them. You don't need to substitute inhaling nicotine by skin entering nicotine. The itch sensation is really soft, as comparing with heroin withdrawal abstinence syndrome.

Don't substitute cigarettes by candies or chewing gum. You will change a nasty habit for another, maybe less damaging and less annoying for the others but definitively not a clean one.

Of course, don't be tempted to substitute smoking tobacco for smoking other things like marijuana. You must not only fight against the itch and the carving for nicotine but also against the habits. You can break the habits and realize that you don't need to aspire a cylinder nor have it in your hands. Just don't ruin your life passing from being a tobacco smoker to becoming a marijuana or hashish smoker.

Smokeless tobacco isn't also the solution. Is nasty, you continue hooked to the nicotine addiction and isn't at all harmless. The truth is that it is very damaging. Attacks the teeth and the mouth.