[ExI] Is tobacco really harmful"?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 12:43:43AM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote:

> While nicotine works fine as an insecticide, it works because of exactly   
> the same reasons human take it - it has cholinergic effects. There does   
> not seem to be good evidence that nicotine is carcinogenic in the   

Nicotine isn't, but tobacco is. Whether smoked or smokeless. 
And of course you're more likely to be demolished by high blood
pressure and not throat cancer.

Virtually nobody is using pure nicotine as a drug, though patches
and electric evaporators could deliver it in principle. 

> scientific literature. From what I have been reading, the cancer risk of   
> smoked tobacco comes from inhaling aerosols loaded with heterocyclic and   
> polyaromatic compounds that are produced by burning plant material. In   
> the case of smokeless tobacco the cancer risk is again largely tied to   
> nitrosamines, more local to the mouth and throat. Smoked cannabis does   
> pose cancer risks too, without any additives (and this would likely   
> refute Robert Masters hypothesis).  

How many people actually consume THC with electric evaporators?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE