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Comment by brobdingnag_pp | Hacker News Reader

That is not true. It is the interaction of nicotine with various monoamine oxidase inhibitors that makes tobacco smoking addictive, to an extent that it could be stated that it is the MAOIs entirely causing the addictive behaviour: the exact same MAOIs are also found in coffee, after all.

Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive, then? The answer lies in the flavourings, which themselves have psychoactive properties, likely also through MAO inhibition.

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God this Gwern junk will never die. There's tons [0] of evidence that nicotine is addictive on its own.

> Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive

It's the nicotine.

[0]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicotine+addictive+site%3Anih.gov&...

I'm not here to argue, but all top 5 links for me are about smoking. I've not heard of people being addicted to nicotine patches for example, especially non-smokers.

https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-...

Nicotine Addiction: Neurobiology and Mechanism: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32322429/

Neurophysiology of Nicotine Addiction: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22454789/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02247412

I looked into this previously, though it was a while ago so I no longer have the sources to hand. Nicotine is still addictive on it's own but when given to non-smokers in a non-tobacco form it's notably less addictive than smoking. Still addictive but far closer to coffee than cigarettes.

Some of this can be explained by different consumptions methods. For example in lozenges, gum and patches nicotine enters the bloodstream much slower than smoking or vaping so even if you consume the same overall amount the peak is lower slowing adaption. But that couldn't explain it entirely.

No, it's because nicotine is an addictive chemical.

https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-...

You will have to supply something to back up such a wild statement. Nicotine has been shown to be extremely addictive all the way from humans down to single neurons in a petri dish, for decades.

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