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> Tobacco smoking has no health benefits. None. It can be argued that nicotine, one of the thousands of compounds in tobacco smoke, can have positive effects on

> Tobacco smoking has no health benefits. None. It can be argued that nicotine, one of the thousands of compounds in tobacco smoke, can have positive effects on some cognitive functions and may even confer some neuroprotection (1), but getting nicotine from tobacco products may be likened to sucking on a tail pipe to get oxygen – it’s there but it’s not going to do you any good. I'm sorry for their personal experience but leading with "there are zero health benefits", immediately following up with "there might be benefits" and then continuing completely disregarding that point is irresponsible. Without interjecting my own opinion, two points I feel are underdiscussed regarding this issue: - as the author mentions there are studies on the cognitive benefits, many mental health patients self-medicate with tobacco including 80% of those diagnosed with schizophrenia - overshadowed cultural aspects. Millennia of pre-20th century tobacco use, its role and impact (positive and negative) in societies, religion, and spirituality is much different than we've experienced over the last hundred years

Zababa 5y ago
You're mixing tobacco and nicotine. There are ways to get nicotine in you without consuming tobacco. I know at least of nicotine gums and nicotine patches.
- BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
  On the first point, yes, health benefits may be mostly related to nicotine, but you wouldn't declare an apple useless just because other sources have the fiber and vitamins without the excess sugar.
- buttercraft 5y ago
  Okay, but if you acknowledge that nicotine has benefits and that tobacco contains nicotine, it makes no sense to say that tobacco has no benefits.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    No health benefits. You're missing the key word in that statement.
- throwaway2331 5y ago
  Nicotine is fairly non-addictive (in gum and patch form. Vapes, may be slightly more addictive due to oral fixation -- but still nothing compared to actual tobacco). Benefits are mostly in appetite suppression (if one is prone to overeating/unhealthy binging), mental stamina (usually due to the aforementioned appetite suppression), emotional anti-lability, and greatly improved saliva production (from nicotine gum, ergo oral hygiene). Tobacco itself contains a lot more psychoactive chemicals (MAOIs, and such), and are definitely more useful in the emotional-regulation department. If you're going through severe, inescapable emotional and physical hardship, tobacco generally keeps you from losing your mind and having a breakdown. And generally, I believe this is the most addictive quality: it keeps the stress to a manageable level (that becomes unmanageable once you stop tobacco, but don't do anything to change your environment). One cigarette/cigarillo every few days is nothing in the grand scheme of things. It becomes a serious problem when you're smoking a pack a day, every day, without giving your lungs any time to heal and clear out (i.e. once the sharp perma-cough comes in, it's time for a break). Even having a cigar once a month (and even inhaling it), it is basically nothing, if you're perfectly healthy otherwise. For what its worth, if the U.S. stopped selling tobacco completely, the economy would fall apart. No one would work all of the absolute dogshit jobs that "underpin" everything else (see: low-skilled, manual labor, etc.); and weed would not be able to fill the void.
  - kompatible 5y ago
    It seems as though the beginning argument is incorrect - [0] seems to state that nicotine itself is in fact addictive. While there may be pseudo-benefits to both tobacco and nicotine, the overuse does indeed negate said effects as you've mentioned, though. [0] - https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-use/nicotine-why-tobacco-products-are-addictive https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-...
    - throwaway2331 5y ago
      The FDA doesn't source those claims. It seems more political, than empirical. Having used nicotine, tobacco, and been around people that have used nicotine and tobacco, there is little observational evidence that is addictive, relative to every other drug out there (including caffeine). From my experience, the effects of nicotine are exceptionally mild compared to caffeine. The most serious is usually severe nausea/vertigo/lightheadedness if you dose too high. Vapes are a different beast, though. You can easily get the same effects as a whippit by chain-vaping 50mg salt nic. However, I would still put whippits as vastly more dangerous long-term (the cause of effect for whippits is oxygen deprivation, including cell death in the brain, whereas for nicotine it's neuronal in nature; but I'm having a hard time finding actual research on the pathways involved, due to the politicized nature of this drug).
wildrhythms 5y ago
The quote says "Tobacco smoking has no health benefits." It goes on to make a distinction between tobacco smoking and nicotine.
- Maursault 5y ago
  I think also that developing software has no health benefits, none, but only as a counterpoint I do not wish to argue. The better argument is that something is deadly, not that something has no health benefits. What I do wish to argue is that the author failed to recognize the difference between tobacco, and what is in nearly all manufactured cigarettes, that is killing people. What is killing people is that most smokers are not smoking tobacco, but half-tobacco, half recorrugated garbage off the floor made into a paper before shredding and infused with additives like 300 carcinogenic chemicals intended to increase the addictiveness of nicotine and smoking. Pipe tobacco is just plain old tobacco, with no additives but water. Pipe smokers don't seem to suffer the fates of cigarette smokers. Death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than for non-smokers, even with men smoking 10 pipefuls per day and with men who had smoked pipes for more than 30 years. [1] Among the pipe smokers.... The US mortality ratios are 0.8 for non-inhalers and 1.0 for inhalers. [2] This means pipe smokers who inhale live as long as nonsmokers, and pipe smokers that don’t inhale live longer than non-smokers. I don't really want to criticize the author, who is merely expressing frustration and compassion and attempting to persuade smokers to quit and non-smokers to never start. But his beef is not really with natural tobacco. Big Tobacco (with their chemical death sticks) is the enemy here. [1] https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/tobacco/nnbbmq.pdf https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/tobacco/nnbbmq.pdf No. 1103, p.112 [2] ibid., No. 1103, page 92
  - tpm 5y ago
    > Pipe smokers don't seem to suffer the fates of cigarette smokers. Oh yes they do. See eg [1]. Also logically, both are inhaling smoke from burning organic matter. There is no way it is not going to be very unhealthy, once you look at the chemical composition of the smoke. [1] Between pipe and cigarette smokers, no or only minor differences were found in mortality from any cause and the specified smoking-related diseases. Pipe smoking is not safer than cigarette smoking. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20952559/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20952559/
JoeyBananas 5y ago
> I'm sorry for their personal experience but leading with "there are zero health benefits", immediately following up with "there might be benefits" and then continuing completely disregarding that point is irresponsible. Ridiculous. What the author wrote about the health benefits of tobacco makes perfect sense. What would really be beyond irresponsible is any argument that tobacco use has health benefits. You have to ignore the mountain of evidence suggesting that tobacco use causes all sorts of major health problems.

Zababa 5y ago

You're mixing tobacco and nicotine. There are ways to get nicotine in you without consuming tobacco. I know at least of nicotine gums and nicotine patches.

BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
On the first point, yes, health benefits may be mostly related to nicotine, but you wouldn't declare an apple useless just because other sources have the fiber and vitamins without the excess sugar.
buttercraft 5y ago
Okay, but if you acknowledge that nicotine has benefits and that tobacco contains nicotine, it makes no sense to say that tobacco has no benefits.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  No health benefits. You're missing the key word in that statement.
throwaway2331 5y ago
Nicotine is fairly non-addictive (in gum and patch form. Vapes, may be slightly more addictive due to oral fixation -- but still nothing compared to actual tobacco). Benefits are mostly in appetite suppression (if one is prone to overeating/unhealthy binging), mental stamina (usually due to the aforementioned appetite suppression), emotional anti-lability, and greatly improved saliva production (from nicotine gum, ergo oral hygiene). Tobacco itself contains a lot more psychoactive chemicals (MAOIs, and such), and are definitely more useful in the emotional-regulation department. If you're going through severe, inescapable emotional and physical hardship, tobacco generally keeps you from losing your mind and having a breakdown. And generally, I believe this is the most addictive quality: it keeps the stress to a manageable level (that becomes unmanageable once you stop tobacco, but don't do anything to change your environment). One cigarette/cigarillo every few days is nothing in the grand scheme of things. It becomes a serious problem when you're smoking a pack a day, every day, without giving your lungs any time to heal and clear out (i.e. once the sharp perma-cough comes in, it's time for a break). Even having a cigar once a month (and even inhaling it), it is basically nothing, if you're perfectly healthy otherwise. For what its worth, if the U.S. stopped selling tobacco completely, the economy would fall apart. No one would work all of the absolute dogshit jobs that "underpin" everything else (see: low-skilled, manual labor, etc.); and weed would not be able to fill the void.
- kompatible 5y ago
  It seems as though the beginning argument is incorrect - [0] seems to state that nicotine itself is in fact addictive. While there may be pseudo-benefits to both tobacco and nicotine, the overuse does indeed negate said effects as you've mentioned, though. [0] - https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-use/nicotine-why-tobacco-products-are-addictive https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-...
  - throwaway2331 5y ago
    The FDA doesn't source those claims. It seems more political, than empirical. Having used nicotine, tobacco, and been around people that have used nicotine and tobacco, there is little observational evidence that is addictive, relative to every other drug out there (including caffeine). From my experience, the effects of nicotine are exceptionally mild compared to caffeine. The most serious is usually severe nausea/vertigo/lightheadedness if you dose too high. Vapes are a different beast, though. You can easily get the same effects as a whippit by chain-vaping 50mg salt nic. However, I would still put whippits as vastly more dangerous long-term (the cause of effect for whippits is oxygen deprivation, including cell death in the brain, whereas for nicotine it's neuronal in nature; but I'm having a hard time finding actual research on the pathways involved, due to the politicized nature of this drug).

wildrhythms 5y ago

The quote says "Tobacco smoking has no health benefits." It goes on to make a distinction between tobacco smoking and nicotine.

Maursault 5y ago
I think also that developing software has no health benefits, none, but only as a counterpoint I do not wish to argue. The better argument is that something is deadly, not that something has no health benefits. What I do wish to argue is that the author failed to recognize the difference between tobacco, and what is in nearly all manufactured cigarettes, that is killing people. What is killing people is that most smokers are not smoking tobacco, but half-tobacco, half recorrugated garbage off the floor made into a paper before shredding and infused with additives like 300 carcinogenic chemicals intended to increase the addictiveness of nicotine and smoking. Pipe tobacco is just plain old tobacco, with no additives but water. Pipe smokers don't seem to suffer the fates of cigarette smokers. Death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than for non-smokers, even with men smoking 10 pipefuls per day and with men who had smoked pipes for more than 30 years. [1] Among the pipe smokers.... The US mortality ratios are 0.8 for non-inhalers and 1.0 for inhalers. [2] This means pipe smokers who inhale live as long as nonsmokers, and pipe smokers that don’t inhale live longer than non-smokers. I don't really want to criticize the author, who is merely expressing frustration and compassion and attempting to persuade smokers to quit and non-smokers to never start. But his beef is not really with natural tobacco. Big Tobacco (with their chemical death sticks) is the enemy here. [1] https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/tobacco/nnbbmq.pdf https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/tobacco/nnbbmq.pdf No. 1103, p.112 [2] ibid., No. 1103, page 92
- tpm 5y ago
  > Pipe smokers don't seem to suffer the fates of cigarette smokers. Oh yes they do. See eg [1]. Also logically, both are inhaling smoke from burning organic matter. There is no way it is not going to be very unhealthy, once you look at the chemical composition of the smoke. [1] Between pipe and cigarette smokers, no or only minor differences were found in mortality from any cause and the specified smoking-related diseases. Pipe smoking is not safer than cigarette smoking. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20952559/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20952559/

JoeyBananas 5y ago

> I'm sorry for their personal experience but leading with "there are zero health benefits", immediately following up with "there might be benefits" and then continuing completely disregarding that point is irresponsible. Ridiculous. What the author wrote about the health benefits of tobacco makes perfect sense. What would really be beyond irresponsible is any argument that tobacco use has health benefits. You have to ignore the mountain of evidence suggesting that tobacco use causes all sorts of major health problems.