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That said, the patches are great for focus and anxiety when used in low doses in moderation

There is almost no good evidence of this. Effect sizes are tiny, if any. Just placebo and anecdotal. The effect is so small it's not even worth it from

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No evidence that nicotine is a stimulant? What?

This has not been my experience. Obviously there's no way I can disprove a placebo effect, but I don't find myself to be particularly prone to placebo effects or magical thinking. The vast majority of the time,, I don't notice much effect if at all from the "amazing" psychoactives, nootropics, pharmaceuticals, supplements, etc., short of full blown psychedelics and stimulants. Perhaps I'm prone to the nocebo effect. Then again, if I nearly always have the nocebo effect, it would seem odd to me that suddenly I would have the placebo effect with patches. Is it like adderall? No, but I would be stunned if researchers performed a double-blind study of patches on me as the sole subject and couldn't find a measurable difference in my behavior in terms of task persistence.

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