[BrS96bVxXBLzf5B]

> Tobacco smoking has no health benefits. None. It can be argued that nicotine, one of the thousands of compounds in tobacco smoke, can have positive effects on some cognitive functions and may even confer some neuroprotection (1), but getting nicotine from tobacco products may be likened to sucking on a tail pipe to get oxygen – it’s there but it’s not going to do you any good.

I'm sorry for their personal experience but leading with "there are zero health benefits", immediately following up with "there might be benefits" and then continuing completely disregarding that point is irresponsible.

Without interjecting my own opinion, two points I feel are underdiscussed regarding this issue:

- as the author mentions there are studies on the cognitive benefits, many mental health patients self-medicate with tobacco including 80% of those diagnosed with schizophrenia

- overshadowed cultural aspects. Millennia of pre-20th century tobacco use, its role and impact (positive and negative) in societies, religion, and spirituality is much different than we've experienced over the last hundred years

[wildrhythms]

The quote says "Tobacco smoking has no health benefits." It goes on to make a distinction between tobacco smoking and nicotine.

[Maursault]

I think also that developing software has no health benefits, none, but only as a counterpoint I do not wish to argue. The better argument is that something is deadly, not that something has no health benefits.

What I do wish to argue is that the author failed to recognize the difference between tobacco, and what is in nearly all manufactured cigarettes, that is killing people. What is killing people is that most smokers are not smoking tobacco, but half-tobacco, half recorrugated garbage off the floor made into a paper before shredding and infused with additives like 300 carcinogenic chemicals intended to increase the addictiveness of nicotine and smoking.

Pipe tobacco is just plain old tobacco, with no additives but water. Pipe smokers don't seem to suffer the fates of cigarette smokers.

Death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than for non-smokers, even with men smoking 10 pipefuls per day and with men who had smoked pipes for more than 30 years. [1]

Among the pipe smokers.... The US mortality ratios are 0.8 for non-inhalers and 1.0 for inhalers. [2]

This means pipe smokers who inhale live as long as nonsmokers, and pipe smokers that don’t inhale live longer than non-smokers.

I don't really want to criticize the author, who is merely expressing frustration and compassion and attempting to persuade smokers to quit and non-smokers to never start. But his beef is not really with natural tobacco. Big Tobacco (with their chemical death sticks) is the enemy here.

[1] https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/tobacco/nnbbmq.pdf No. 1103, p.112

[2] ibid., No. 1103, page 92

[naim08]

"Even if you don't inhale, you can get cancer from smoking pipes and cigars. People who smoke cigars regularly are 4 to 10 times more likely than nonsmokers to die from cancers of the mouth, larynx, and esophagus." [1]

"Between pipe and cigarette smokers, no or only minor differences were found in mortality from any cause and the specified smoking-related diseases. Pipe smoking is not safer than cigarette smoking." [2]

Not sure if pipe smoking is a better alternative. Would love to hear your thoughts on what I've shared.

[1] https://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/effects-of-smoking-p...

[2] http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tc.2010.036780

[Maursault]

The trouble here is that I can't see actual paper in [2], cigars don't enter into it, and that the study I referenced, and subsequent studies, show that what causes cancer is carcinogens, which are intentionally addrd by Big Tobacco to increase addictiveness. The fact is everyone has cancer, but we're not all sick because we naturally slough off cancer cells. Is anyone particularly aware of cancer rates in Native Americans from the 1300s to the 1940s? Why aren't we? Probably because they were low enough to be noise against the natural occurrences of cancer.

Smoking anything can cause emphysema, and I wasn't ever making a claim that smoking is healthy or safe, so there are some straw man fallacies present in your reply. What I was drawing attention to is that cigarettes are not tobacco, and that due to the intentional infusion of 300+ known carcinogens [1], it is no wonder it kills so many people every year. I don't have any references, but I expect before the chemical revolution in the 1950's, smoking cigarettes didn't kill remotely as many people.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdV_1u-TodY&t=13m25s

[tpm]

> Pipe smokers don't seem to suffer the fates of cigarette smokers.

Oh yes they do. See eg [1]. Also logically, both are inhaling smoke from burning organic matter. There is no way it is not going to be very unhealthy, once you look at the chemical composition of the smoke.

[1] Between pipe and cigarette smokers, no or only minor differences were found in mortality from any cause and the specified smoking-related diseases. Pipe smoking is not safer than cigarette smoking. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20952559/

[Maursault]

According to the US Surgeon General report I cited, my statement is true.

> Also logically, both are inhaling smoke from burning organic matter.

No, that is my point. At least half of what is in national brand cigarettes is not organic. [1]

> There is no way it is not going to be very unhealthy, once you look at the chemical composition of the smoke.

Since I made no mention of health, this is a straw man. Please take better note of what my claim is, which concerns mortality, not health. But yes, the chemical composition of cigarette smoke is terrifying, though there is confusion here. Cigarettes are not tobacco, and what is in (nearly all) cigarettes is not natural tobacco.

Regarding your endnote, what you are (effectively) claiming is that the infusion of 300+ known carcinogens in cigarette tobacco has no effect on mortality, which is absurd on its face. Also, it is possible to likely that popular pipe tobaccos have in the last 45 years changed to include these carcinogens. If so, these participants were not smoking natural tobacco, and the study says nothing whatsoever about smoking natural tobacco.

So please produce a study showing the differences in mortality rates between smokers of national brand cigarettes (which since the 1950's chemical revolution or thereabouts have intentionally added carcinogens [1]) compared to mortality rates of smokers of unadulterated natural tobacco, as in tobacco that is merely grown, dried and smoked without any processing.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdV_1u-TodY&t=13m25s

[tpm]

> what you are (effectively) claiming is that the infusion of 300+ known carcinogens in cigarette tobacco has no effect on mortality, which is absurd on its face

It's not absurd once you account for the already present carcinogens from burned plant material. And even smokeless tobacco (chewing etc) causes oral, oesophagus, and pancreas cancer.

[Maursault]

To be clearer...

What is in national brand cigarettes is not tobacco, but a product made from tobacco that is almost entirely unlike tobacco. Tobacco is put in a vat, the nicotine is extracted, a mash is made into which nicotine is infused at higher levels than in natural tobacco, and 300+ known carcinogens are added called additives, from the mash a paper is made, the paper is sliced into little pieces, this is mixed with cut stems, whatever fell on the floor, and previous recycled product that was never sold, all stuffed into paper.

Natural tobacco, on the other hand, is grown, dried, and sold. Sometimes water is added.

Your claim is both products are equally lethal. If smoking pipe tobacco (which as I have always seen it sold, is natural tobacco, easy to tell by looking at it) is just as bad as smoking cigarettes, then adding 300+ carcinogens to cigarettes has no ill effects. This is what is absurd, because, of course adding 300+ carcinogens is going to make the product more lethal. The 300+ carcinogens is the reason why 400K Americans die every year do to smoking-related illness. Prior to the 1950's chemical revolution, the mortality rate of smokers did not even begin to approach this number. Beginning in the 1950's is when smokers started dying en mass every year.

There is a massive difference between natural tobacco and what is in cigarettes. The latter is lethal, the sole cause of the high mortality rates of smokers. The former is merely unhealthy. Pipe smokers that inhale live as long as non-smokers, and pipe smokers that do not inhale live longer than non-smokers. That's what the US Surgeon General report says.

Am I getting through?

[Turing_Machine]

Tobacco has psychoactive substances besides nicotine.

In particular, it has monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which are effective against depression, panic disorder, and social phobia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_inhibitor

Some believe that this is why replacements that contain only nicotine (e.g. nicotine gum and patches) aren't really all that effective as smoking cessation aids.

[Zababa]

You're mixing tobacco and nicotine. There are ways to get nicotine in you without consuming tobacco. I know at least of nicotine gums and nicotine patches.

[throwaway2331]

Nicotine is fairly non-addictive (in gum and patch form. Vapes, may be slightly more addictive due to oral fixation -- but still nothing compared to actual tobacco).

Benefits are mostly in appetite suppression (if one is prone to overeating/unhealthy binging), mental stamina (usually due to the aforementioned appetite suppression), emotional anti-lability, and greatly improved saliva production (from nicotine gum, ergo oral hygiene).

Tobacco itself contains a lot more psychoactive chemicals (MAOIs, and such), and are definitely more useful in the emotional-regulation department. If you're going through severe, inescapable emotional and physical hardship, tobacco generally keeps you from losing your mind and having a breakdown. And generally, I believe this is the most addictive quality: it keeps the stress to a manageable level (that becomes unmanageable once you stop tobacco, but don't do anything to change your environment).

One cigarette/cigarillo every few days is nothing in the grand scheme of things. It becomes a serious problem when you're smoking a pack a day, every day, without giving your lungs any time to heal and clear out (i.e. once the sharp perma-cough comes in, it's time for a break). Even having a cigar once a month (and even inhaling it), it is basically nothing, if you're perfectly healthy otherwise.

For what its worth, if the U.S. stopped selling tobacco completely, the economy would fall apart. No one would work all of the absolute dogshit jobs that "underpin" everything else (see: low-skilled, manual labor, etc.); and weed would not be able to fill the void.

[kompatible]

It seems as though the beginning argument is incorrect - [0] seems to state that nicotine itself is in fact addictive. While there may be pseudo-benefits to both tobacco and nicotine, the overuse does indeed negate said effects as you've mentioned, though.

[0] - https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-...

[throwaway2331]

The FDA doesn't source those claims. It seems more political, than empirical.

Having used nicotine, tobacco, and been around people that have used nicotine and tobacco, there is little observational evidence that is addictive, relative to every other drug out there (including caffeine).

From my experience, the effects of nicotine are exceptionally mild compared to caffeine. The most serious is usually severe nausea/vertigo/lightheadedness if you dose too high.

Vapes are a different beast, though. You can easily get the same effects as a whippit by chain-vaping 50mg salt nic. However, I would still put whippits as vastly more dangerous long-term (the cause of effect for whippits is oxygen deprivation, including cell death in the brain, whereas for nicotine it's neuronal in nature; but I'm having a hard time finding actual research on the pathways involved, due to the politicized nature of this drug).

[Maursault]

I'm not going to condone abusing Whippets, but it takes an awful large amount of long term repeated abuse of Nitrous Oxide to have adverse effects, which I believe are neuronal... losing feeling in the legs is one symptom I've heard. But it is well known among all the substances that are abused to be the least harmful. Even so, Nitrous Oxide abuse is no laughing matter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide#Neurotoxicity_an...

[DanBC]

Tinnitus has been reported in a few people who've only used nitrous occasionally.

[wyre]

Nicotine is addictive. Patches and gum contain extended release nicotine which might be why you think it isn’t addictive. Zyn pouches are a freebase nicotine product that the user puts in their gum like tobacco chew and is an addictive product.

[throwaway2331]

Do you have any evidence?

I've done free base nic, salt nic, and nic polacrilex. Salt nic would be, in my opinion, the most habit-forming (but not addictive), due to a quick and high "peak," and quicker clearance -- leading to a need to re-dose more often. That's also granted that the route of administration (vaping) allows for an insane amount of nicotine to be absorbed, much more than you can ever get with pouches, gums, and patches.

As well, I'm not certain, but I believe Zyn uses salt nic, and not free base.

I've done snuff as well, and it's similar to nicotine gum (except being more of a nuisance).

I haven't seen evidence for basic nicotine products being addictive. I have little comprehension how something so mild can become addictive. Habit-forming? Yes. Full-blown addiction? No.

Cigarettes are different. They're a cocktail of various psychoactive chemicals that get dumped straight into the bloodstream in large amounts. I understand how they can become addictive. I have first-hand experience of all the necessary things that must come together for the "addiction" switch to come on.

In my experience, nicotine alone is not enough for that switch to be flipped.

[Maursault]

> Nicotine is fairly non-addictive (in gum and patch form. Vapes, may be slightly more addictive due to oral fixation -- but still nothing compared to actual tobacco).

You are somewhat mistaken. Natural tobacco is fairly non-addicting because it doesn't contain nearly the amount of nicotine than what is in cigarettes, and what is in cigarettes is not natural tobacco. Nicotine, itself, is highly addictive, and there are myriad reference of studies to back this up. The addictiveness of nicotine is often compared to that of heroin. Vaping with nicotine is most likely just as addictive as smoking national brand cigarettes only due to the amount of nicotine present, thus natural tobacco is most likely not as addictive as vaping nicotine. Nicotine gum, due to the difference in delivery system, is likely just as addicting as chewing tobacco (which is also not natural tobacco but highly manipulated tobacco product to increase addictiveness). But nicotine, itself, beyond it's addictiveness, is not all that bad to consume, it won't kill you (below the lethal dose of 30-60mg), thus, vaping nicotine or nicotine gum is not all that bad, maybe not bad at all (but, again, addiction is bad in and of itself, not due to killing you, but due to messing with your free will, making you a slave to the addiction).

[throwaway2331]

I still don't see it.

The only justifications I've come across are a matter of post-hoc rationalization ("because nicotine is addictive, X, Y, and Z"; but no "nicotine is addictive, because A, B, C"), and taking it as granted.

I have yet to see anything explaining why nicotine is addictive (not merely, how it could be addictive, but the evidence behind why this statement is just taken as fact).

Everything being written about it just flies in the face of my experience with nicotine/tobacco, and what I've seen from talking first-hand with smokers, vapers, and other types of users. It's like I'm listening to a bunch of upper middle class people talk about what it's like to be homeless: completely detached from reality -- and simply repeating a bunch of thoughts and ideas that they've seen somewhere else.

Even Cochrane's, a gold standard in this field, Tobacco Addiction Group just takes it at face value that nicotine is addictive. Where is the evidence? Where is the paper trail? Who has decided this? When and why? Why cannot I find any high-impact, high-citation count research that explains and justifies why nicotine is addictive?

The only thing that has moved my opinion of this matter, was a Surgeon General report another poster replied to me with: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK179276/pdf/Bookshelf_N...

Page 30:

"It was not until the 1988 report that the Surgeon General declared that cigarettes are addicting, similar to heroin and cocaine, and that nicotine is the primary agent of addiction (USDHHS 1988)."

Four years after nicotine replacement therapy via nicotine gum is introduced, the Surgeon General declares cigarettes to be addicting, in the same vein as cocaine and heroin (no it's not what was actually said, but it is implied), and that nicotine is the cause of addiction. I'm going to have to read the original 1988 report, but I'm not convinced that this is anything but political (when is it not?), rather than actual.

I'm more liable to agree with (same page):

"Additionally, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the general understanding of smoking behavior and nicotine addiction was very limited. At the time, health scientists viewed smoking as primarily psychological and social, rather than pharmacological or biological. The 1964 report concluded that tobacco dependence should be characterized as a form of habituation rather than addiction (USDHEW 1964), drawing on a distinction established by WHO in 1957. That definition emphasized the physical effects of the drug, the compulsion to obtain it at any cost, and the habit’s detrimental effects on the individual and society (WHO 1957). The WHO Expert Committee on Addiction-Producing Drugs observed that for cigarette smoking, evidence was lacking at the time for a typical abstinence syndrome. “In contrast to drugs of addiction, withdrawal from tobacco never constitutes a threat to life,” they wrote. “These facts indicate clearly the absence of physical dependence” (USDHEW 1964, p. 352)."

I keep seeing things just claimed as fact, without a single shred of evidence, besides "we've all agreed upon it. There are WMDs in Iran."

Apologies for the hyperbole and hysterics, but this is just maddening. Who gets addicted to nicotine? Who is actually physically and mentally dependent on nicotine products (excluding tobacco)? Where are these people?

The only people I've met who have issues with nicotine products are smokers -- including those that are trying (always unsuccessfully) to quit via nicotine replacement therapy. I'm more convinced nic gum manufactures lobbied the Surgeon General, under some plausibly deniable pretenses, than I am to believe nicotine, a chemical weaker than caffeine, is addictive.

Absolutely mad.

[Maursault]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_recept...

Dig in.

[throwaway2331]

I read through that article, as well as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_agonist , but they're shallow on details.

I understand the low-level pharmacodynamics (but these are seldom useful when talking about high-level, system-wide, and complex effects).

BUT, this portion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Reinforcement_disorde... has a few interesting tid-bits, especially the article on DeltaFosB/"as a critical factor in the development of virtually all forms of behavioral and drug addictions." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSB#Delta_FosB) As well as, "Based upon the accumulated evidence, a medical review from late 2014 argued that accumbal ΔFosB expression can be used as an addiction biomarker and that the degree of accumbal ΔFosB induction by a drug is a metric for how addictive it is relative to others."

Fascinating stuff -- and exactly what I was complaining about.

A more nuanced take on why drug-mediated DeltaFosB expression may be involved in addictive (see: habitual drug usage) behaviors: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2607320/

BUT, so many things cause DeltaFosB expression (e.g. sugar, exercise, drugs, etc.), that we need to establish how significant of an effect nicotine has compared to everything else. Fortunately, we do have one study comparing caffeine's and nicotine's DeltaFosB expression: https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jchemneu.2017.10.005

Results (page 9; "number of DeltaFosB-immunoreactive nuclei per 1 mm^2" in the nucleus accumbunus):

| Control | Nicotine | Caffeine |

| 43,83 ± 16,80 | 117,33 ± 14,36 | 112,77 ± 10,12 |

To me, that looks like a similar addiction-profile. Granted, DeltaFosB is probably not the be-all end-all, but a small piece in untangling why and how nicotine (and other drugs) may or may not be addictive.

It would be even better, if we could put these two side-by-side with other drugs, notably cocaine and heroin, to see if the effect expression is logarithmic (and DeltaFosB over-expression is similar across-the-board for all drugs considered addictive).

[buttercraft]

Okay, but if you acknowledge that nicotine has benefits and that tobacco contains nicotine, it makes no sense to say that tobacco has no benefits.

[actually_a_dog]

No health benefits. You're missing the key word in that statement.

[BrS96bVxXBLzf5B]

On the first point, yes, health benefits may be mostly related to nicotine, but you wouldn't declare an apple useless just because other sources have the fiber and vitamins without the excess sugar.

[JoeyBananas]

> I'm sorry for their personal experience but leading with "there are zero health benefits", immediately following up with "there might be benefits" and then continuing completely disregarding that point is irresponsible.

Ridiculous. What the author wrote about the health benefits of tobacco makes perfect sense. What would really be beyond irresponsible is any argument that tobacco use has health benefits. You have to ignore the mountain of evidence suggesting that tobacco use causes all sorts of major health problems.