[ExI] Is tobacco really harmful"?

[Eugen Leitl]

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?

> impossible to get a lethal dose of nicotine from smoking. It is the

High blood pressure kills quite well.

> non-nicotine components of tobacco and tobacco smoke - tar,
> nitrosamines, carbon monoxide -  that are responsible for most of the
> harmful effects.

Smokeless tobacco is not harmless.

Just in the last few days we had a disturbing pattern of pronouncements
which negatively reflect on all of us participating in them. We definitely
do not want to come over as kooks.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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