Why Big Tobacco and Big Vape love comparing nicotine to caffeine (2019) | Hacker News Reader

Why Big Tobacco and Big Vape love comparing nicotine to caffeine (2019)

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12 pointsTomte9 comments

I wonder how many people would consume nicotine if the only option was raw tabacco cigs or pipes. That stuff makes you sick so quickly, but filtered cigarettes are designed to mask the harshness through chemical additives and engineering.

It really elevates nicotine from a minor buzz to be experienced once in a while (if you smoked more you'll end up vomiting with a raw throat) to something any grandma could pick up and smoke a pack a day

I've consumed a small amount of snus and it always ended up making me feel sick. Never had it with vaping or cigarettes though. But snus was a far superior nicotine experience before the bad stuff started.

A lot of people get nauseated their first time or two with snus or dip. I definitely got myself sick my first time with dip, but I had no idea what I was doing and put way too much in. Didn't stop me from trying it again. I still use it every couple of months, mostly because it's a very convenient stimulant when caffeine isn't cutting it. After that first use, I have rarely experienced stomach upset even though I gut it.

I smoke cigars on occasion. They dont make you sick quickly. Sure, if you do 3, 1hour burn cigars back to back, you'll feel like complete shit. But one cigar and a majority of people are done for a day or two.

If I wasn't a nicotine addict, I would love to enjoy some pipe tobacco from time to time. It's certainly an acquired taste and has some "unpleasant" effects, but so do most liquors and lots of drugs and I've grown to love many of those dearly.

You can smoke a pipe all day long (within reason) and it won't make a tolerant user sick, so long as the smoke isn't inhaled and you use quality tobacco and a good wooden filter.

Pipe (and cigar) tobacco is not meant to be smoked like cigarettes or cannabis.

These articles would be a lot more effective if they actually talked about the harms of only nicotine. From everything I’ve read, nicotine by itself causes little to no damage. Equating having an addiction with damage itself doesn’t make sense to me.

Only in low dose. On higher dosage pure nicotine can cause acute poisoning just as with any substance ( caffeine, cocaine, alcohol... ).

Due to this I believe addiction itself has an inherently bad quality: Users with more tolerance could seek to increase their dosage, and they're more at risk of overdose.

We are not sure if it's not carcinogenic, or not having other long term damages. But only due to limited data, and does not mean it actually is safe.

Yes but deaths from nicotine overdose are basically non existent because it’s impossible to imbibe that much without feeling terrible. Addiction does not have an inherently bad quality, you increase the amount you take because your body can tolerate it. Anything more and you feel sick.

I need to know what harm nicotine can cause on its own, being addicted is not bad in itself.

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