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Comment by Justin_K | Hacker News Reader

Nicotine on its own is a highly addictive substance which provides no health benefits. It should be targeted just as well.

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It's not though. It's a mild stimulant, with similar benefits to caffeine. (Not health benefits per se; it helps some people focus).

> Wikipedia summarizes Guillem et al 2005 as "Technically, nicotine is not significantly addictive, as nicotine administered alone does not produce significant reinforcing properties" - the addictiveness coming from MAOIs (eg. Khalil et al 2000, Khalil et al 2006) & possibly other compounds present in tobacco; while there don’t seem to many human studies aside from the Amsterdam et al 2006 review on the observed inhibition in smokers (consistent with the MAOIs playing a role in addiction), there are a number of significant animal studies:

https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine

Not to say it's not addictive at all, I'm mildly addicted to nicotine gum, to about the same extent I'm addicted to caffeine (if it's available I'll certainly take it, but if I run out, I'm not rushing to the store to buy more).

Perhaps the FDA should regular sugar and the amounts of it which make it into our drinks, bread, prepared sauces, etc.

One of the first things you notice when coming to America from Europe is just how damn sweet everything is. Even your eggs seem too sweet, let alone your drinks and actual sweets.

Maybe regulation is a good idea.

So the threshold is "provides no health benefits"? Should we also target coffee in the same way (nicotine being in the same classification as caffiene)?

How about we only regulated things which are proven to be harmful?

Nicotine is not that addictive. Coffee is just as physically addictive in my opinion. And I've actually managed to quit using nicotine several times whereas I've only successfully quit coffee once (and I'm back on it). Also, it does have health benefits, if alertness, relaxation, and mental clarity are health benefits, which are some of the effects of alcohol and coffee. Why does everything have to have a health benefit? I think some people would just lose it if they didn't have nicotine. Anyway, what's the harm to you?

You could say the same about sugar.

nootropic

Nicotine has several health and mental benefits and is not at all addictive if taken apart from cigarettes.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-nicotine-all-b...

Er, nicotine itself is absolutely addictive, regardless of the delivery mechanism. From the article you linked: "Scientists don't doubt nicotine is addictive".

Scientists also don't doubt that caffeine is "addictive." Anything can be "addictive."

Let's put it this way: are there any scientific studies with results indicating that nicotine, by itself, has significantly stronger self reinforcing properties in comparison to caffeine.

The answer is no: there are none. Quite the opposite. Nicotine has pretty weak self reinforcing properties for all the hype. The magic is in tobacco smoke and various other drug interactions that result in the strong self reinforcing properties of tobacco smoke. So, when many people bring up nicotine's addictive properties they're really talking about tobacco smoke.

There's also the hand-mouth habit, but I digress.

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