4 ms·

I think it's selection bias. Lots and lots of living people have smoked at some point. However, many (most?) of those people quit smoking at some point. So,

• pseudalopex 6y ago
  That doesn't mean quitting was easy for them.
• renewiltord 6y ago
  The part that breaks that is that in the population I'm talking about, I have known the people continuously from age 15 to age 34. Twenty years continuously, over 20 people. No one ever tried to hide the habit (hiding your smoking is a thing no one did 20 years ago). So I can observe this population fixedly and not suffer from survival bias. It could be selection bias. Maybe I hang out with other people with addiction potential because of who I am. But it's definitely not survival bias (which is sort of what the rest of your comment talks about). The thing that makes it unlikely and the article's premise unlikely is that the weight of evidence is on this stuff being addictive. But, you know, I'm a huge fan of the therapeutic effects of many scheduled drugs, so I'm open to the idea that addiction works differently from currently understood.