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Comment by egnehots | Hacker News Reader

I'm concerned that many might miss the nuance and subtlety of the main issue:

- Nicotine IS really addictive when distributed through common uses (smoking, vaping).

Yes, if the absorption is progressive and in small dosages, the addiction is less severe, but this is not useful for smokers who want to quit and presents a dangerous introduction for others

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I have zero interest in cigarettes though. So like, let's say I started chewing a gum and then I became addicted to the gum. I'm assuming the downside here would be primarily withdrawal effects of not chewing the gum? It's not like it's going to be a gateway to cigarettes for me. You'll experience caffeine withdrawal too, so I'm not sure that's really a problem.

From the article,

> There is little evidence from the NRT literature that ‘never-smokers’ like myself are all that likely to become highly addicted,

That is to say, it does not seem to present a dangerous introduction for others, assuming you mean an introduction to cigarettes.

Indeed, there are loads of occasional-cigar smokers out there who have zero interest in smoking cigarettes, and in between the times they feel they can afford a quality cigar, simply do not smoke at all.

I just had my first cigar the other night at 38. Was a good experience, I look forward to next time, but it was the environment/atmosphere more than the high.

I have zero interest in smoking weed or cigarettes. It's a completely different thing in my mind.

There is no "high" with cigars. It's just a matter of enjoying a particular aroma profile, just like eating barbecue, smelling a perfume, or burning some incense. Did you really go into smoking a cigar expecting some kind of drug experience?

Nope, I went in expecting exactly what I got. It was awesome.

Anecdotally, I've accidentally quit vaping several times, because I don't vape when I've caught a cold and that's coincided with me needing to buy supplies.

I've gone back to it because I find it enjoyable, but, having watched my father quit smoking several times, I can't say that I've ever had withdrawals like that, or really at all.

So my theory is, really, that cigarettes and tobacco in general is far more addicting and therefore far more bioactive than just consuming nicotine is.

I have quit cigarettes successfully (for ~10 years now) and found it wasn't too difficult. However, I have known people who could quit indefinitely and pick it back up without issue and people who are going through rounds of quitting, returning, quitting and so forth.

I personally believe there are additional elements involved that could be genetic or psychological.

I used to both smoke and extensively used pure Nicotine (gums, sprays etc.)

In my opinion, majority of the people who are stopping Nicotine (not just smoking) approach it as an incredibly hard challenge. The process is demonised and described as something that is really hard to complete. That's exactly what I would like people to think if I'd be to work in a marketing department for tobacco corporations.

While there is a longer story behind it, I quit cold turkey in March this year. This time was much easier - I didn't approach it as something that is hard to do. While this might sound banal, I focused on what am I getting out of it, not what I'm loosing. Everything, from my gums to my muscles got better.

Nicotine in its pure form is definitely great brain stimulant, I'm still a big fan. I just don't think it's worth the cost, both from financial and health perspective to use it often.

cigarette smoke also has a bunch of other stuff, including MAOIs. it's definitely not _just_ the nicotine. iirc, cigarettes also have additives to make the nicotine hit harder / cross the blood brain barrier faster, which probably doesn't help

I was an occasional smoker for over a decade and only got addicted to nicotine when I started vaping. It's more anecdata, but I don't think vaping is any less addictive than smoking cigarettes, and for many people vaping will increase their likelihood of addiction just because it's easier to vape unnoticed and there's no natural stopping point like there is with cigarettes.

I've also temporarily quit nicotine and caffeine when I got sick, and I think part of the reason is that the withdrawal effects are less noticeable and/or maybe you attribute them to the illness. Also, if you get sick enough to take time off from work, that tends to coincide with the worst withdrawal effects, which last about three days in my experience.

I dunno about that. Personally, I smoked cigarettes for about 5 years, then quit for about a decade, and then picked up vaping a few years ago.

I’m definitely just as addicted to the Juul as I ever was to cigarettes, if not more so, and it definitely seems like it will be harder to quit. Cigarettes are so gross it’s almost a benefit, you need to go outside to smoke, the vape is just so easy and so much cleaner, I’ve definitely found it much harder to cut down.

My friends who took up vaping (esp in pandemic) ended up vaping near-constantly

It's not the 80s, so vaping allows one to sit around the house and duff it in a way that most people wouldn't do with cigarettes.

I feel like nicotine intake can dramatically increase with vaping.

Mathwise it's about 6mg of nicotine adsorbed per cigarette. That gives you a way to compare dosage of nicotine to vaping a certain concentration of juice.

Probably not a great 1:1 because there are other things in play with smoking, but, ballparky enough.

If you wanted something closer, you'd need to figure out how the other compounds in cigarette smoke affect nicotine adsorption and activity.

The withdrawal effects are more like kicking a heroin addiction.

I'm not really sure whether I can or should dispute your basic point, but I will say that pharmaceutically pure nicotine is radically different to tobacco smoke.

People who quit smoking are actually quitting a synergistic cocktail of drugs - nicotine and a variety of MAO inhibitors found in tobacco smoke. There is good evidence to suggest that these MAOI components dramatically increase the addictiveness of nicotine.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01618...

That's somewhat person dependent. I was a heavy smoker (3-4 packs a day) for several years, but quitting cold turkey was very easy for me. I basically had no cravings unless I was drinking, and those went away after a month.

I realize I'm an outlier.

WOW that's amazing how different people's experiences can be.

I smoked one pack spread out 2 or 3 days, for about 3 years (in college). Rarely would do a full pack in a day.

Quitting was pure torture. I stayed up 24 hours walking laps around my campus. Took like four full days for cravings to go away.

Haven't had a cigarette in 10 yrs. Occasionally enjoy a cigar without problems

I was terribly addicted for a decade, smoking and then vaping, and for me, withdrawal was almost intolerable. For about three days, it was a terrible experience. I felt sick, raged with anger, cried, felt unhinged, and even had minor visual disturbances. It can really only only be compared to a bad psychedelic trip. But once I did manage to get through it, that was it. It hasn't much bothered me since. Stopped thinking about smoking about a week after. I can't say I crave it really, and I cannot relate to the long-term experiences where people say it takes months or years to get fully over it. We're all different.

I also believe it’s the duration of use and not the concentration of use that plays more a role here. Being a heavy smoker for 4 years isn’t the same mentally as someone who smoked normally for 20 years. I think past the 10 year mark and your brain has suffered damage to the point where the addiction becomes life. However, in about 10% of cases, smokers who quit were able to because the effects of nicotine addiction hadn’t taken hold. Much like some people feel nothing from taking cocaine.

IANAE though.

Either way. I was a smoker but not a heroin user and quitting was the hardest thing for me. It took me almost a month to feel normal.

That doesn't sound true.

Try it then. As someone who smoked and quit and have had friends who smoked and quit who also had heroin habits, they corroborate the difficulty. It’s a different type of struggle but the struggle is strong just the same.

I've quit both cigarettes and a middling amphetamines addiction.

Quitting cigarettes was trivial. I decided not to buy a pack that day and then never bought another pack. That's my anecdotal contribution to the discussion.

Less anecdotally:

Opioid withdrawal, in extreme cases, has killed people from persistent vomiting and diarrhea. It has measurable physical symptoms with an understood pathophysiology largely connected to the cAMP-signaling system.

Nicotine withdrawal is far less understood, to the degree it has been classified at all (mostly in studies of mice). It certainly has never killed anyone, you're not going to shit yourself to death. They're not comparable to one another.

I feel like I shouldn't have to try heroin to understand this. A solid paper on the topic would suffice.

A simple Google search returns hundreds if not thousands of results.

Here’s one for you https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/20/9/1038/4096884

That paper does not look like it actually measures addiction, and I don't want to sort through hundreds or thousands of results...

But I don't really care. It doesn't sound true but it also doesn't change anything.

No it wouldn’t unless you can consistently reproduce any found results among differing populations and I have serious doubts such a paper, with said follow ups, exists.

OK, then I'm going to go with "doesn't sound true"...

There needs to be a term for this mindset where people won't entertain a thought or idea unless there's a study proving that thought is correct in all cases. I can guarantee the person you responded to is a weightlifter.

That's not the case here at all. I believe lots of things without studies. Something like "heroin and cigarettes are equally addictive" doesn't sound right to me - that's why I need evidence to the contrary. It's a somewhat extraordinary claim, therefor I require some evidence.

Purely anecdotal, but I believe Keith Richards is on record stating that kicking heroin was far easier than kicking nicotine.

There's evidence for this, too -- he quit using heroin decades ago, but only managed to quit smoking a few years back.

So it seems to be true, at least for him.

You’re conflating nicotine with tobacco again.

For me, quitting smoking was easier than quitting coffee addiction. Coffee is everywhere, cheap, and consumption is all but encouraged. If I were to smoke I take on all sorts of baggage. Much of smoking is about being a smoker which is a mindset and community that is hard to leave. Social effects can be much stronger than physical dependence.

> For me, quitting smoking was easier than quitting coffee addiction

Operative phrase here: "for you".

Totally agree. One of the hardest parts of quitting smoking for me was quitting smoke breaks with my smoker friends at work.

Yes, but only because nicotine is cheap, easily available, won't cause any real immediate problems or drain your bank account.

As a substance its no where near as addicting as heroin, no one would actually ruin their lives for nicotine in case it was illegal and expensive.

That is different from withdrawal being worse. Opiate withdrawal can be rather severe from a physical standpoint. Nicotine withdrawal simply is not.

That is not surprising.

a) The downsides to smoking are far longer term and harder to feel daily

b) You're surrounded by smokers, you can literally smell them smoking just by walking down the street

c) Smoking is legal. You can just go buy a pack.

I am unsurprised that quitting smoking is harder for some people, given that. But in terms of withdrawal symptoms, that's where I think heroin is probably worse. But I also don't really know. So far someone linked a Google search and an irrelevant paper.

I’ve heard you can actually quit cigaret cold turkey and be fine. Whereas I imagine you could die if you tried that with heroin?

Anecdata follows. As a never smoker I used nicotine gum during strength training workouts. I never had any urge to use it at other times. I did not find the effect very pleasant either, so while I couls see its benefit plotting my progress, ultimately I stopped using it. I do have tobacco addiction in my family history.

everyone's a never-smoker until they're not. the sense I got with this article is that the author started with the presumption that nicotine from sources other than smoking is basically okay and built up from there. that's not to say that he's wrong, just that it didn't feel like a rational approach

To give an alternate perspective:

smoking cigarettes is just an all around bad experience, it smells bad, it tastes bad, it hurts my throat, and for what? Light headedness, possibly with the spins? And the smell lingers it gets into everything, you basically need to change your clothes after you smoke a cigarette.

I’m a non smoker period, and I can only assume this “oh everyone says they can’t get addicted to cigarettes until they start smoking” attitude can only be projection from hapless addicts. It just doesn’t work that way for me.

I’ve even tried nicotine gum, just to see if maybe it’s the smoking itself that’s a turnoff - without the smell and the taste, maybe nicotine is good on its own? But it’s not - it’s the same head-spinning mild nausea that I recognize right away from cigarettes. who is this drug for? Because it’s certainly not me. Addicted to this? I literally cannot imagine it, why would I seek such a comprehensively bad experience compulsively and repeatedly? It just doesn’t compute for me.

>I’m a non smoker period, and I can only assume this “oh everyone says they can’t get addicted to cigarettes until they start smoking” attitude can only be projection from hapless addicts. It just doesn’t work that way for me.

this is a bizarre assumption. first of all, no one said that everyone who hasn't smoked has a strong propensity, what I said was that everyone who has been addicted once wasn't. I myself have very little propensity towards addiction to nicotine and do not enjoy cigarettes. that doesn't mean that I think this talk of most "never-smokers" having little propensity towards addiction makes sense. everyone who has ever been addicted to nicotine was once a "never-smoker", and probably billions of people consume nicotine every day. those numbers tell the real story

For the word “dangerous” to be appropriate, it needs to be established (1) that nicotine is bad for you or (2) that this introduction ever leads to smoking. Or are you just taking all the harms of smoking and applying them to nicotine because of cultural reasons?

100% correct. This article circulates every so often but it's basically just super dangerous. Recommend just looking at NIH [0] here.

[0]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicotine+site%3Awww.ncbi.nlm.nih.g...

Could you provide something way more specific than a DDG search?

No the thing I'm doing is burying this armchair gwern hogwash with tons of actual research that spans decades.

Not particularly. Pure nicotine in and of itself is significantly less addictive than the form presented in a cigarette. Modern big tobacco has managed to create an incredibly nasty and addictive chemical slurry in a stick, with acetaldehyde, ammonia, MAOIs, and a bunch of other chemicals which significantly increase the addictiveness of nicotine.

Gwern has noted the same in his post:

> 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

Gwern has noted the same in his post:

It wasn’t showing up when I had edited initially, my bad.

Nicotine itself really isn't particularly dangerous. If you haven't already been a smoker, you have no mental connection between nicotine cravings and cigarettes, so you don't really have any reason to desire them. If you were used to something like Zyn & tried a cigarette, you probably wouldn't even like it that much in my opinion. It may kick in significantly quicker, but there's also substantially less nicotine in a cigarette vs a nicotine pouch and it would probably leave you dissatisfied and annoyed at the bad taste in your mouth.

I used gum to come off vapes, and I still use gum. Over time, I’ve started to notice my tolerance is … decreasing? I’m now cutting a 2mg gum (lowest dose) in 4 with a pill cutter, and that’s about the right amount

Honestly addiction itself is not enough of a downside.

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