This is just false. Go read the literature on nicotine. It helps create artery disease, both in terms of blockages and having them explode (hardening of the arteries) later.
To have a fair discussion I think we should compare to other substances we legally consume.
Neither is "if we forbid everything that might be dangerous".
Let's try to move beyond Page 1 of the textbook for Logical Fallacies 101, please.
Re: cars, cars have upsides. What's the upside of nicotine?
regarding upsides of nicotine - one may improve mood, alertness, calm down anxiety. These are acute results. Long-term - I believe there are quite a few papers on nicotine usage being associated with decreased chances of alzheimer's. (just one off top of my head, there might be more.)
There is so much politics and misinformation in this discussion. That's not good.
ps: For me the upside of nicotine is fun. The same with alcohol. (I say this as someone who is vaping once a month and uses nicotine as a drug but does not want the downsides of cigarettes.)
> For me the upside of nicotine is fun. The same with alcohol.
I'm with you 100% on this one; I love to drink haha. But alcohol is pretty tightly regulated most places, both culturally and legally. I guess I'm fine if vaping/smoking/drinking/sugar are in the category of "we know they're bad for us but we like it, so we'll have some kind of regime where we can enjoy them in moderation"?
> What's the upside of nicotine?
Nicotine is potent cognitive enhancer.
No. Nicotine in these forms is "a lot less addictive" than inhaled forms. It just doesn't seem that way to step-down users.
Nicotine is naturally present in at least as many foods as sugar is, albeit in very low concentrations.
Nicotine on it's own has a nootropic effect in normal doses, and a sedative effect in larger doses and is a very useful compound. It is at least as useful as alcohol, and the vast majority of the downsides of using nicotine come from using tobacco, not nicotine itself.
Maybe in some sense of the word [0], but definitely not like nicotine [1]. [1] also addresses nicotine replacement therapies, finding that nicotine on its own is still addictive.
> Nicotine is naturally present in at least as many foods as sugar is...
Definitely untrue, it's like eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflower, and a couple others.
> ...albeit in very low concentrations.
The amounts are comically low:
> ...you need to eat 5 kilograms of eggplant, 12 kilograms of fresh potatoes or drink 9.5 liters of tomato juice to get [a cigarette's worth of nicotine, or 3mg]. [2]
I don't really think there's an equivalency between 30kg of eggplant and 20mg of nicotine in a vape pack.
> Nicotine on it's own has a nootropic effect in normal doses, and a sedative effect in larger doses and is a very useful compound.
We have other things for this. Is there a need for nicotine as a sedative? Do we need to satisfy that need with bubblegum Juul?
[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5174153/
[1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7724697/
[2]: https://thisnutrition.com/food-products-containing-nicotine
~40% of our population is obese and another 35% or so are overweight and we don't regulate it at all in any capacity (marketing to kids, packaging, etc).
While I agree obesity etc. are problems, I would argue that this is due to sugar's ubiquity rather than its addictive qualities.
It just seems oddly specific and too "big government", why is one specific vaping product being banned when the science has shown that they're less harmful than cigarettes, you can still buy cigarettes, and there are almost certainly other more harmful substances (like alcohol) that have a bigger impact on the health of the USA that are not banned.
I don't feel like anyone would argue against more regulations, but an outright ban of sale feels super weird.
To have a fair discussion you should compare both the costs and benefits of an item, not just a simplistic downside that is not even at that simplicity equivalent. Comparing damage from nicotine to the damage of sugar while ignoring that sugar is also necessary for human life shows the problem with your line of reasoning.
I swear we could cut down on 80% of the comments in this thread if people took a minute to learn that essentially all the health risks from smoking are the result of combusting plant material and not the effect of nicotine.