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> 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). |
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.