Our problem is not smoking. Our problem is how and why we smoke. It has nothing to do with the drug itself but everything to do with us.
I also know this empirically because I was a half a pack a day smoker for a few years and I have never been more anxious, it was what drove me to quit.
You feel relief shortly because you're satisfying the addiction but at the general level you have more stress.
It is not the drug that is the problem but how you used / abused it.
How can something stimulate and sedate at the same time? It's legacy nomenclature that has become counterintuitive. Like how electrons are negative and holes are positive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarette...
The short answer is, "yes."
> This is the list of 599 additives in tobacco cigarettes submitted to the United States Department of Health and Human Services in April 1994.