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Smoking is addiction that is demonstrably bad for your health and has no benefits. I grew up in an environment where smoking was encouraged and I can understan

Smoking is addiction that is demonstrably bad for your health and has no benefits. I grew up in an environment where smoking was encouraged and I can understand a person that conforms to their buddies. I have personally never tasted it but when I was teen virtually everybody smoked and it took a lot of willpower to withstand the pressure. I think these days, in western world, except for schools, low income neighborhoods and low income jobs to be smoking means you have not enough willpower to end it. I would say most middle class people and office workers do not encourage smoking or will actively discourage it and smoking is mostly treated as a disease.

cgag 8y ago
there are tons of benefits which is why people do it
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  Such as?
  - jstanley 8y ago
    Probably that it feels good. Same reason people do anything addictive.
    - ndnxhs 8y ago
      Doesn't it feel good in a similar way that scratching an itch does in that its more a temporary relief from suffering instead of feeling good all the time?
  - yayana 8y ago
    A social network with other smokers in proximity. Regular breaks from work that they don't forget to make. Regular time outside of a sealed office space.. There are definite short term advantages to smokers. There (_)used to be similar short term advantages for those who drank during work hours when it was socially acceptable. (_ Used to might be wrong.. Startups with designated drinking times that seem to be mandatory are annoying but not irrational given their short term interests.)
    - ndnxhs 8y ago
      Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I'm lucky that at my current job none of us smoke and still regularly take quick walks outside of the office. I guess it helps that every room has a door that goes directly outside.
  - EvilTerran 8y ago
    Nicotine has stimulant & nootropic effects: https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#benefits https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#benefits Tobacco also naturally contains, in addition to the nicotine, other compounds that act like MAOIs - ie, as antidepressants: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16859748 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16859748
- cbluth 8y ago
  I hear death has some great benefits too, everyone's doing it.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    You probably didn't mean to be correct, but it happened anyway. A virus is immortal. The macro-organisms we're all familiar with will age and die even under ideal circumstances; there is no fundamental reason for this to be necessary. But we evolved to do it because it offered advantages over the more traditional ageless immortality.
- Thriptic 8y ago
  I'm not sure why you are being downvoted because there are very clearly benefits to smoking in the form of stimulation and relaxation. Many people get started with smoking because it provides these benefits. People shouldn't do it because the overall risk profile is highly negative given the health impacts, but to say there are no benefits frames the problem completely incorrectly.
- slfnflctd 8y ago
  I'm one of the sorta-fortunate (I guess) ones who almost never got any pleasure out of cigarettes. Something about my physical composition doesn't jibe well with them. A handful of times when the air was super humid, I was intoxicated in some way and/or my body was in a certain equilibrium, I experienced the enjoyment, but the rest of the time (~95%) they made me feel worse. I was still stupid enough to keep doing it for social reasons way longer than I should have. My small experiments with cannabis have made me wonder how tobacco possibly could have ever become more popular, the former's effects are much more noticeable with a vastly smaller amount of smoke and can be quite pleasant.
  - SuoDuanDao 8y ago
    Tobacco had a longstanding religious significance here in North America, that's how I was first introduced to it and I still appreciate it as part of sweat lodges or similar events. It makes more sense to me viewed in that light, a good analogy might be the bread and wine of a catholic mass.
bitL 8y ago
Germany is definitely not western world then. 50% of adults can't say no to a cigarette.
- MagnumOpus 8y ago
  Even in Germany, only 24.5% of adults smoke (old data from 2013, nowadays probably a lot less).
  - bitL 8y ago
    "Microcensus"... Other sources state >50% smokers (not just heavy ones)
thaumasiotes 8y ago
No benefits? > The heaviest smokers, with everything else being equal, had about half the number of parasitic eggs in their stool, compared to everyone else > Smoking kills. But if you’re a bird and if you want to kill parasites, that can be a good thing. City birds have taken to stuffing their nests with cigarette butts to poison potential parasites. > 8 intestinal parasite species have been recovered singly or in combinations from 146 (61.8 %) samples. The prevalence in prison population (88/121 = 72.7%) was significantly higher than that in tobacco farm (58/115 = 50.4%). (from https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/did-tobacco-become-popular-because-it-kills-parasites/ https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/did-tobacco-b..., which is basically just a collection of these quotes) The reason smoking gives you a lower parasite load is surprisingly intuitive: parasites often move through the body by using the circulatory system, which is, after all, a transportation network designed to reach every part of the body. The circulatory system, for business logic reasons, is a star topology which connects every point to every other point through a single central hub, the lungs.
- eesmith 8y ago
  As far as I can tell, the references you gave do not support your implication that there are benefits to nicotine smoking. "The heaviest smokers" refers to THC smokers, not nicotine, which is the topic at hand. It may be that nicotine smoking does the same, but your reference does not show that that has been demonstrated outside of a Petri dish. The "no benefits" refers to human health, not birds. Even with humans, smoking benefits the wealth of the cigarette manufacturer, which may lead to better health. But that also was not the point. The prison/tobacco leaf development farm comparison cannot be used to judge the effect of nicotine smoking on one's health. For one, the paper does not mention which population smoked more, nor does it report nicotine levels in the stool samples. For all we know, the prison population may smoke 4x more than the farm workers. Or 1/4th as much. The "In vitro anthelmintic effect of Tobacco" paper described in your link refers to study in a Petri dish of aqueous and alcoholic extracts of tobacco. It describes how "Dried leaves, stalks and the whole herb of tobacco are widely used as an anti inflammatory, antirheumatic and anthelmintic agent" and cites other papers which use nicotine extracts. This paper therefore cannot be used to conclude there is a beneficial in vivo effect of smoking tobacco. Lastly, while the blood does indeed go through the lungs, it is wrong to say "a single central hub", as the heart is also a central hub.

cgag 8y ago

there are tons of benefits which is why people do it

ndnxhs 8y ago
Such as?
- jstanley 8y ago
  Probably that it feels good. Same reason people do anything addictive.
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    Doesn't it feel good in a similar way that scratching an itch does in that its more a temporary relief from suffering instead of feeling good all the time?
- yayana 8y ago
  A social network with other smokers in proximity. Regular breaks from work that they don't forget to make. Regular time outside of a sealed office space.. There are definite short term advantages to smokers. There (_)used to be similar short term advantages for those who drank during work hours when it was socially acceptable. (_ Used to might be wrong.. Startups with designated drinking times that seem to be mandatory are annoying but not irrational given their short term interests.)
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I'm lucky that at my current job none of us smoke and still regularly take quick walks outside of the office. I guess it helps that every room has a door that goes directly outside.
- EvilTerran 8y ago
  Nicotine has stimulant & nootropic effects: https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#benefits https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#benefits Tobacco also naturally contains, in addition to the nicotine, other compounds that act like MAOIs - ie, as antidepressants: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16859748 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16859748
cbluth 8y ago
I hear death has some great benefits too, everyone's doing it.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  You probably didn't mean to be correct, but it happened anyway. A virus is immortal. The macro-organisms we're all familiar with will age and die even under ideal circumstances; there is no fundamental reason for this to be necessary. But we evolved to do it because it offered advantages over the more traditional ageless immortality.
Thriptic 8y ago
I'm not sure why you are being downvoted because there are very clearly benefits to smoking in the form of stimulation and relaxation. Many people get started with smoking because it provides these benefits. People shouldn't do it because the overall risk profile is highly negative given the health impacts, but to say there are no benefits frames the problem completely incorrectly.
slfnflctd 8y ago
I'm one of the sorta-fortunate (I guess) ones who almost never got any pleasure out of cigarettes. Something about my physical composition doesn't jibe well with them. A handful of times when the air was super humid, I was intoxicated in some way and/or my body was in a certain equilibrium, I experienced the enjoyment, but the rest of the time (~95%) they made me feel worse. I was still stupid enough to keep doing it for social reasons way longer than I should have. My small experiments with cannabis have made me wonder how tobacco possibly could have ever become more popular, the former's effects are much more noticeable with a vastly smaller amount of smoke and can be quite pleasant.
- SuoDuanDao 8y ago
  Tobacco had a longstanding religious significance here in North America, that's how I was first introduced to it and I still appreciate it as part of sweat lodges or similar events. It makes more sense to me viewed in that light, a good analogy might be the bread and wine of a catholic mass.

bitL 8y ago

Germany is definitely not western world then. 50% of adults can't say no to a cigarette.

MagnumOpus 8y ago
Even in Germany, only 24.5% of adults smoke (old data from 2013, nowadays probably a lot less).
- bitL 8y ago
  "Microcensus"... Other sources state >50% smokers (not just heavy ones)

thaumasiotes 8y ago

No benefits? > The heaviest smokers, with everything else being equal, had about half the number of parasitic eggs in their stool, compared to everyone else > Smoking kills. But if you’re a bird and if you want to kill parasites, that can be a good thing. City birds have taken to stuffing their nests with cigarette butts to poison potential parasites. > 8 intestinal parasite species have been recovered singly or in combinations from 146 (61.8 %) samples. The prevalence in prison population (88/121 = 72.7%) was significantly higher than that in tobacco farm (58/115 = 50.4%). (from https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/did-tobacco-become-popular-because-it-kills-parasites/ https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/did-tobacco-b..., which is basically just a collection of these quotes) The reason smoking gives you a lower parasite load is surprisingly intuitive: parasites often move through the body by using the circulatory system, which is, after all, a transportation network designed to reach every part of the body. The circulatory system, for business logic reasons, is a star topology which connects every point to every other point through a single central hub, the lungs.

eesmith 8y ago
As far as I can tell, the references you gave do not support your implication that there are benefits to nicotine smoking. "The heaviest smokers" refers to THC smokers, not nicotine, which is the topic at hand. It may be that nicotine smoking does the same, but your reference does not show that that has been demonstrated outside of a Petri dish. The "no benefits" refers to human health, not birds. Even with humans, smoking benefits the wealth of the cigarette manufacturer, which may lead to better health. But that also was not the point. The prison/tobacco leaf development farm comparison cannot be used to judge the effect of nicotine smoking on one's health. For one, the paper does not mention which population smoked more, nor does it report nicotine levels in the stool samples. For all we know, the prison population may smoke 4x more than the farm workers. Or 1/4th as much. The "In vitro anthelmintic effect of Tobacco" paper described in your link refers to study in a Petri dish of aqueous and alcoholic extracts of tobacco. It describes how "Dried leaves, stalks and the whole herb of tobacco are widely used as an anti inflammatory, antirheumatic and anthelmintic agent" and cites other papers which use nicotine extracts. This paper therefore cannot be used to conclude there is a beneficial in vivo effect of smoking tobacco. Lastly, while the blood does indeed go through the lungs, it is wrong to say "a single central hub", as the heart is also a central hub.