[notatoad]

yes, it's very different.

the health impacts of coffee are significantly less than the health impacts of smoking. Coffee doesn't cause cancer or heart disease. ~480000 americans don't die every year of caffeine-related illnesses. being dependent on anything sucks, but a dependency on something that's not really even bad for you is a lot different than a dependency on something that has a decent chance of killing you.

[TylerE]

The relevant question would be the health impacts of caffeine vs the health impacts of nicotine.

Smoking is a horrible delivery mechanism. There are others that seem to present far fewer downsides.