[ExI] Is tobacco really harmful"?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2009/11/26 Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>:
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 08:15:26PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>> Participants in this discussion seem to conflate nicotine with
>> tobacco. Nicotine is the psychoactive component component of tobacco,
>
> They not only think it's the same, despite ample evidence to the
> contrary they consider pure nicotine harmless. It isn't.
>
>> but any harmful effects it may cause are relatively minor. Yes, it can
>> kill in overdose, but even water can kill in overdose, and it is
>
> Why do many people here routinely dump from /dev/ass and don't
> spend a few seconds on PubMed to check for a potentially
> questionable assumption?

I refer you to the review paper cited before from the Journal of the
American College of Cardiology, who I assume are not kooks:

http://content.onlinejacc.org/cgi/content/full/41/3/497

It is debatable whether nicotine on its own causes any ill effects
such as an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease, whereas
smoking tobacco certainly does and smokeless tobacco also does
(Swedish snus apparently less so, perhaps due to its lower nitrosamine
content). Nicotine patches and gum are, at the very least, way safer
than cigarettes.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou