> how weak we are in the face of determined actors with financial motives.
And a highly addictive product. Nicotine is just plain bad for us anyway, so all the "safe" alternatives are just BS.
And a highly addictive product. Nicotine is just plain bad for us anyway, so all the "safe" alternatives are just BS.
What matters is the affects small amounts of nicotine, repeatedly, have over time. Nicotine increases blood pressure and so it slowly destroys your cardiovascular system. Smoking is, of course, bad for your lungs.
The combination of lung damage and heart damage is deadly. Typically heart failure will require more oxygen in your blood to make up for the fact your heart doesn't work. But the lungs are bad at extracting oxygen when they have pulmonary damage.
I smoked for >20 years, quit for 10, then started again when dealing with grief after my partner passed away, and smoked for another 10. I get it, literally: high-blood pressure, etc. Although, when quitting, it was always the tar that really drove me crazy.
Another thing I've realized, is that smoking is a double-whammy vector towards heart disease: smoking promotes heart disease directly, but smoking also promotes gum disease, and gum disease promotes heart disease.
Oddly, nicotine as such is not that harmful, comparatively. It's the addiction (and the potential to escalate to inhaling carcinogens) which makes it so bad.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/quit-smoking/in...
Nicotine poisoning is possible, but not for adults at normal dosages. It's all the other crap your inhaling, sucking, or melting which is carcinogenic or otherwise directly harmful. Taking nicotine regularly isn't that healthy, but the reason nicotine is bad is really mostly down to its addictive nature.