Nicotine and I were once friends. We had some good times together but nicotine is not the benign drug  marketed to many generations. In fact, the substance is both a deadly poison, as well as a therapeutic agent.

Let’s just clear away some of the smoke.

A Light History

Nicotine is a talented drug. It has the abilities to both stimulate and relax the body with the same administration. The main effect is on the central nervous system. This is the area of the brain that nicotine initially stimulates. This is the part of the brain that includes much of our self-awareness (the prefrontal cortex, for your information). The next stop nicotine makes is a move over to another brain area (the parasympathetic nervous system) where muscles receive orders to relax. A wake up and relaxing feeling from the same puff.

The history of nicotine starts with the tobacco plant. Over the centuries, tobacco is known as an effective insecticide, as well as a form of money. Consumption of the plant included smoking, eating, and inhaling. Talk about versatility!

As a poison, nicotine goes right to the nervous system and shuts down function. Respiration slows, organs fail, consciousness is finally lost and eventually death occurs. As an insecticide, nicotine does not discriminate. The product kills all creatures equally well.

In case you are curious, it really takes a lot of nicotine to kill a person, though it is possible. More generally, nicotine consumption sickens people in high concentrations and produces side effects when taken into the body regularly in lower concentrations.

As scientific knowledge and methods progressed over the years, the distillation of the active chemical ingredient in the tobacco, nicotine, became possible. This concentrated form produces more pronounced effects and carries with it, greater dangers too.

The New Age of Nicotine

Anti-smoking campaigns began in earnest in the 1960’s and 70’s, and rightly so. Smoking processed tobacco means taking in a whole lot of chemicals and contaminants that adversely affect the individual’s health over a lifetime. As a result of numerous advertising efforts, smoking has been on the decline in the United States for a number of years.

Then arose a new industry to help people stop smoking. Nicotine, the exquisitely addictive compound in smoking, was removed from the tobacco and placed in new delivery methods. From chewing nicotine impregnated gum to trans-dermal patches that slowly leak nicotine through the skin. These solutions are touted as ways to control the addiction without stopping intake completely. After years of use and study, results show that the gum and patch solutions produce only modest quit rates. Combining the devices with some sort of supportive therapy improve outcomes.

The technology that created these smoking cessation tools is now being used to create a new, and often younger, generation of nicotine addicts. Since the last time I wrote about vaping, the discussion has become livelier but the practice is no less dangerous. Vaping trades some pretty horrendous chemicals (formaldehyde, lead) for the old tars and carbon dioxide (and formaldehyde and lead) of traditional cigarettes. Users are not getting a healthy deal either way, though the rationalizations in support of vaping still abound.

The New Vaping

Now we have Juul on the vaping market. This is a vaping device that delivers a far more potent amount of nicotine with each use. Again, no supporting science to defend the use of this product but the vendor uses a very savvy marketing plan to distance themselves from any perceived liabilities.

These guys are good.

Juul even advertises specifically against young people purchasing or using their products which produces the predictable result of making the practice of Juuling a hit in schools nationwide.

Quite a marketing strategy there.

Some Common Sense

I do not write about smoking from some book-learned perspective. In my youth, I smoked for several years. I know the seductive effect that nicotine has over one’s lifestyle. It was also a bear to quit and stay quit but life is so much better without.

If you have quit, congratulations!

If you choose to continue to use nicotine, you won’t get too much sympathy from me but if you are considering quitting, a little information may help. That and I am behind you 100%!

Nicotine is:

• A drug
• A really good poison
• Toxic to our bodies in any form or amount
• Used with professional help to quit a nicotine habit

There is plenty of great evidence to support quitting.

Even better – don’t start.

“My mother smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. Before she smoked her first cigarette, she was free to choose whether or not she would smoke. After a while, her freedom reverted to Satan—so it would seem. The choice was no longer hers—so it would seem. Her mind and body were attacked with nicotine cravings that got so bad she would sometimes scavenge through garbage cans for butts when she’d run short on full cigarettes.

I watched, baffled at how something so small and so disgusting to me could have such power over my mother. That’s the thing about addiction—it binds us one choice at a time. That’s also the good news about addition—you can unravel the hold it has on you—one choice at a time.”

― Toni Sorenson