Every time I smell somebody smoking I need a pouch or I’ll go ask for a bum

I’m sorry, but the chemically addictive and carcinogenic properties of nicotine aren’t really up for debate. Unless you’ve made some outlandish scientific discovery you’ve failed to get peer reviewed…

I beg you to inform yourself: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/quit-smoking-tips#why-quit

You don’t have any fucking idea what your talking about. I stopped smoking cigarettes 2 months ago and switched to tobacco free pouches. I have been tapering down from 6 mg to 4 to now 2. And here’s a good tip, especially when talking about addiction. You don’t get a say in anyone else’s experience amd diminishing another persons struggle makes you look like a real jackass, especially considering you have no experience of your own. I can tell because if you did you wouldn’t be spouting this bullshit

That’s really not the case. Nicotine is highly physically addictive. “Habits” are involved in the way the mind links itself to the addictive substances and the effect of consuming them. My wife quit smoking 15 years ago, and walking in the woods still gives her near-uncontrollable urges to light a cigarette. Because she and I camped a couple time the first year of our relationship and she smoked a cigarette on a hiking trail. That’s not habit-related. Having a cigarette was a more formative and powerful influencing memory to her than basically anything else in her life.

Being allowed cigar breaks during work also encourages use, since it’s a “free pause”

That’s just anti-smoker bullshit. Honestly, if you work at a job where you need to smoke to get a break, you should be finding another job anyway. Let’s just stick to hating the drug instead of the smokers.

Probably, yes. Even the age restrictions are kinda silly.

I do think it’s ok to ban sale of “prepared smokables” like cigarettes. The harm level is known to be severe. But if someone wants to buy their own tobacco+papers and roll their own cigarettes, that’s on them.

Of course, I don’t think it would be effective to ban cigarettes. Just ethically coherent.

Nobody out there is just buying Nicotine gum for the flavor. The overwhelming majority are struggling with an addiction that may one day kill them.

Also, as a former smoker of over 20 years as well as a current coffee addict, I can tell you from personal experience that there is no comparison between the two. Some substances are simply more addictive than others. Nicotine is one of the worst on the planet.

The problem with addiction is that it’s safe to say that NOTHING is good if used to excess.

I used to be so hooked on caffeine I drank a 30-cup pot each day. It was giving me all kinds of issues, and I was only in my 20’s. I’m still addicted, but I’ve learned to moderate. It took me years. And my 4th latte of the day is telling me that I’m not exactly great at it.

If I smoked/vaped Nicotine, I would have serious problems of taking too much all the time.

What do you think is fuelling that connection?

Exactly my point. It always throws me for a minute when I realize people are treating them so separately.

So you’re against smelling flowers, too? And scented candles?

The problem is that we “inhale particulate matter” all the time. Every day of our lives.

Hookah is pretty bad for you too, my friend. From Wikipedia, emphasis mine:

The major health risks of smoking tobacco, cannabis, opium and other drugs through a hookah include exposure to toxic chemicals, carcinogens and heavy metals that are not filtered out by the water,[3][8][9][10][11] alongside those related to the transmission of infectious diseases and pathogenic bacteria when hookahs are shared.[3][9][12][13] Hookah and waterpipe use is a global public health concern, with high rates of use in the populations of the Middle East and North Africa as well as in young people in the United States, Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia.[3][8][9][10][11]

If the best you can say is “it’s pretty much a mini hookah, don’t worry”, then I’m going back to the best you can say for it is that it’s poorly understood. Vaping doesn’t burn anything, unlike a hookah, but the vaporized oils still contain toxins and novel toxins not in the smoke from cigarettes or hookah. The health consequences of that are not well understood, but are probably not as bad as cigarette smoking. That’s the best we’ve got.

Who would want other nicotine options without cigarettes or vaping? No one is starting out with nicorette.

Nicotine is the active psychoactive poison that gets you hooked. Its not harmless.

The people that have to pay them, I assume

Hell, I can still smell smoke strongly enough to make me breath lightly because of how bad it smells even if the smoker is gone. That shit lingers.

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Whataboutism.

I generally agree, just that it seems cheap to pile on smokers like they are some sort of lepers. Also you are free to go somewhere else when around a smoker. Their habit doesn’t make them second class citizens, or should I say your freedom ends where theirs begins?

If we want clean air we have to start with the actual polluters, not the easy pickings who are just random people. That’s like, obsessively worrying about your personal climate impact when the vast, vast majority of climate change is caused by just a handful of corporations.

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They absolutely are talking about any form of tobacco…hell track and trace in the EU has effectively destroyed the nasal snuff industry in Germany…a form of tobacco that has no deaths on its hands… literally. This is just ignorance being used in the name of “think of the children” hell that’s one of the main things everyone keeps bringing up in this thread.

Meanwhile, smoking has been on a sharp decline for decades, is no longer a mass killer…while obesity is and alcoholism has grown 10 fold, so much so that they created a new label called social drinkers because it would put a massive amount of the population into alcoholic territory.

Not necessarily. People could actually start smoking more because tax free cigarettes are astronomically cheaper

Slaves don’t grow on trees though

Moving the goalposts or something like that?

So it prevents young people from picking up the habit.

right, just like how it being illegal prevents young people from drinking and smoking weed… 🙄🙄🙄

That isn’t how time works.

This really varies by state, based on the smoking policies. In Republican led states, smoking policies have led to shorter life spans.

Whilst I agree with you in that I don’t think this is an optimal approach, at the same time I’m curious as to whether this would create a significant black market for cigarettes.

Anybody already addicted will continue to have access. Anyone not addicted has to overcome the barrier of acquiring it illicitly, which works in tandem with education about the harm it does.

Considering how bulky cigarettes are compared to most other drugs, I wonder whether most dealers would carry around loads of cigarettes - particularly if they’d be at risk of being prosecuted for having them (which I don’t think is the case here, though).

However, it would probably increase the rate at which weed is cut with tobacco as it increases the addictiveness and ensures customer dependency for the dealers.

Making things easily available increases their rates of use

That’s smoking, not tobacco products use. Vaping, for instance, is its own category.

Tobacco use includes more options, so the numbers will be higher

Sorry but no. habits generally take weeks to months to form. that smoking becomes habitual certainly makes quitting harder. there is no doubt there. but, if smoking was far less addictive, it would be far less likely to ever develop as a habit. Remember, that nicotine from smoking (or vaping) starts affecting your brain essentially instantly, creating a dopamine hit, as well as the other affects. it is that which makes nicotine addictive. not some random associated habits that developed over weeks or months.

Also your sources aren’t very good. In the first, there’s no direct link to the studies in question, but based entirely on what was said int he article… I’m doubting very much they took into consideration the use of alternatives by flight attendants- patches and gums are extremely common among FA’s that smoke; specifically to manage the cravings while they’re forbidden from smoking. And from what I can tell with a quick search (I’m far from authoritative here,) snuff has been used as an alternative to smoking on shabbat… from pretty much the first time it was brought to Europe, so I would have to assume patches are also a viable method of controlling cravings there as well.

In any case, nobody really says that nicotine causes cancer. At least, no one even remotely honest.

tobacco use causes cancer. As RSPH notes:

Nicotine is harmful in cigarettes largely because it is combined with other damaging chemicals such as tar and arsenic,

however it goes on to be wrong about one thing:

Electronic cigarettes and Nicotine Replacement Therapy (gum, lozenges, and patches) contain nicotine but don’t contain the harmful substances found in cigarettes.

vapes frequently contain toxic chemicals. many are frequently contaminants from extraction; some are added as flavoring or turn into toxic chemicals because of being vaporized, which changes chemical structures. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Nobody really knows for sure what the long term impacts of vaping is- even if the vape juice is just water; we don’t really know if it’s safe or not. One thing people do know is that Nicotine is addictive, and that you keep saying it’s ‘not that bad’ makes me think maybe you’re trying to justify something. I don’t care if you smoke or vape. nobody here does. But I do care that you’re spreading misinformation about things.

Talk to any one whose tried quitting both caffeine and nicotine. there’s really no comparison between the two; and saying there’s not is patent bullshit.

That sounds like some D.A.R.E. bullshit. If that’s the case then I’d be perfectly fine trying heroin once because I won’t get addicted to it. I’ve tried nicotine a few times, now, and I have less than zero interest in trying it again. You can make your point without being hyperbolic