My wife has spent her entire career in public health law, dedicated to stopping smoking. I can assure you that the culture of her world can be completely described by one word: Puritans.
To our public health Puritans, smoking is a repulsive and vulgar habit that is only engaged in by the lower classes. Just like the Prohibitionists of the early 20th century, today’s public health community is morally at peace with killing millions of people if it helps to achieve their ultimate goal, not because they are psychopaths but because they comfortably place any blame on the victim.
The public health community’s goal is not simply to eliminate all tobacco use. They are committed to banishing all form of smoking. Forever. And to them, “smoking” is all encompassing, including vaping, whether the substance is tobacco or cannabis or any synthetic compound.
The public health community is constantly pushing to make smoking socially, culturally and politically anathema. If current smokers persist after all the public health initiatives to the contrary, any bad outcomes are the fault of the weak-willed smoker. The community expects that eventually smoking will become so socially unacceptable and legally untenable as to be indistinguishable from hard drug use.
Of course this is just another war on drugs. But the Puritan strain runs deep throughout American history. We’re going to keep killing people for their own good until everyone is dead.
Let's not forget that the origin of the American progressive movement was alcohol prohibition, and that they were willing to poison industrial alcohol and kill thousands of people in the process to save them from themselves. This is not new.
Maybe the most sinister ploy of the Progressives was the creation of our modern administrative state. By portraying its bureaucrats as disinterested experts, Progressives fooled Americans into believing that public policy could be divorced from politics. Most people still intrinsically trust almost every three-letter federal regulatory agency, from the FAA to the FDA to the EPA (and the ATF, too).
The truth, as revealed by public choice scholars, is that all of these extra-constitutional agencies are filled with activists. Rather than protect the public, most of the time they protect the industries they are charged with regulating. They see their chief mission as advancing their proprietary vision of an equitable society.
The rot is not limited to the public health community. It extends throughout the entire federal administrative state. Unfortunately, we’re likely stuck with this system, as most people trust businesses people and free markets even less that bureaucrats
Its fascinating to watch the "this explains it all" tack. (this is a gentle critique of the thought process, Im not dinging you)
The points on Puritans are very valid, but life and reality is multifactorial.
I can, if pressed, (lets say in a forensic debate context, where I need not believe in the position) make a case for crediting "Wokeness" to the following factors, with as much weight (and specific examples):
AWFLs
Progressive Jews and their response to the Holocaust
Italian American communist labor union agitation
Their cousins in the Chavista movement
SSRIs
Hormone disruptors causing children to doubt their sexuality and their own sex even.
The infiltration of Academia by midwit legacy daughters of the elites (see AWFLs, above)
Lesbian separatist "gender abolition" feminists off all stripes (even "TERFs")
Corporate America getting on the bandwagon to deflect from the demands by Occuply Wall Street
The massive build up of DC beaurocracy under W, leaving masses looking for a new reform every 4 years, lest they must retreat to real jobs in the hinterland.
"Obama"
Title 9 "reforms"
Fatherlessness
etc etc.
The complicated dance of seeminly contradictory and opposed forces brings Boston to mind: the hotbed of Puritanism became the hotbed of emergent 19th C lesbian, feminist, (and yes reformer) circles. From Boston to Puritan to witch trials to Progressive women called witches to modern feminists proudly "reclaiming" the perjorative.
Its complicated, but, in the end the rachet only goes left, even if it pauses, and even rightist movements (Puritans) descendents can appear to push left (factor in that Puritans were "dissenters" in England). Perhaps a calculus that looks at the pushers vs the pushed in regards to "morality" is a better lens. Control freaks on both sides, variously pushing against freer societies or aligning with repressive ones.
Moralist Christians in the US get pushback from leftist, feminist woke who then regulate behaviors along a different axis.
I think in making your case, you need to be careful not to use an overly broad definition of 'wokeness,' one which Newsom for instance is using, one DeSantis may or may not be using, and one I'm definitely not using. When we speak of 'wokeness' around here, we're talking specifically about the moral framework that arises from blending Crenshaw intersectionality, PC, Bivol-Pavda racism redefinition, and virtue climbing behavior. While I do think your list of influences probably has something to do with the animus behind wokeness as defined herein, only a few are majority factors. Let's run through and rate their contribution or causation of wokeness on a 1-10 scale...
* AWFLs: 0, they're too dumb to realize what they're playing with.
* Progressive Jews and their response to the Holocaust: 0, prog Jews don't even know how wokeness works, they'd be against it if they did,
* Italian American communist labor union agitation: ? ... call this a 3, you probably know more about the details of it than I,
* Their cousins in the Chavista movement: ditto
* SSRIs: in my experience, folks who get on these just experience general malaise and have the tops and bottoms of their emotional range chopped off. Not sure how this would contribute to wokeness at all
* Hormone disruptors causing children to doubt their sexuality and their own sex even: 7 if these are significant, but I suspect they're only really a 2 or a 3.
* The infiltration of Academia by midwit legacy daughters of the elites (see AWFLs, above): This is one of your main contributors. Call this an 8.
* Lesbian separatist "gender abolition" feminists off all stripes (even "TERFs"): I'd overlap this with the line above, and again call it around an 8,
* Corporate America getting on the bandwagon to deflect from the demands by Occupy Wall Street: 3. I don't think they did this consciously. I think they just generally react out of short term panic in all things, and DEI was one of those things in the wake of 2020.
* The massive build up of DC beaurocracy under W, leaving masses looking for a new reform every 4 years, lest they must retreat to real jobs in the hinterland: 0. As a former libertarian I feel you on this but I don't think this really influences woke thought much. Wokeness is a completely separate thing from general liberal big government worship.
Thanks for playing this game - its good to refine and critique onself.
We would rate the players differently.
Obama being a 0 is way off though, in a substantive way. Associations (old commies like Ayers), academic influence, "reforms" (Title 9 now allowing trannies) etc. Hes lock, stock and barrel woke, including the derangement from being mixed race in a social justice family, AND if you still consider it wokeness with the CIA mixed in, that influence via his mothers parents and Mr Soetaro.
We might agree on the lesbian (there are very specific cultural and possibly even biological factors here, worth much more exposition)/feminist/AWFL (as their foot soldiers, even when straight) nexus as being a solid 8.
I think the greatest ally the antiwokes have within the LGBT movement is the lesbians, TBH. they are very displeased that their lesbian only events, apps, and dating spaces keep getting crashed by people with penises who claim to be women. They do not like that at all. And they are the 'take no shit' group within the LGBT coalition. If a Pride Parade were a military parade, the lesbians would be the special forces.
I respectfully beg to differ. I spent several years networking via Twitter with Terfs. What I found was the same misandry, disorganization, and political correctness. Not just differences about abortion policy or DEI, but a deeper problem with allyship organization and cooperation with anyone who doesn't tow their party line, that being wokeness is fine with the one exception of transgenderism and how it affects adult women
> That misinformation is killing people, the CDC is doing it on purpose, and the only way to counteract it is to spread the scientific truth through unofficial channels.
When folks like Alexandros Moranos were freaking out about the CDC lying about ivermectin or whatever, all I could think of was the "First Time?" meme.
I've always been curious about a third nicotine delivery method that is rarely talked about in modern circles; pipes. If you burned pure tobacco leaf without all the additives that modern cigarettes have, and didn't inhale the smoke, how does it change things? I know that in the 1800s and early 1900s, pipe-smoking was remarkably widespread, and had an impact on health that is probably impossible to correlate directly to modern mortality rates. I wonder how much healthier that might have been compared to the cigarettes that replaced them, which were smoked differently and eventually picked up a whole collection of preservatives and additives.
I don't have a great scientific reference for pipes or cigars, and didn't look much into it because the use of them isn't really a public health issue one direction or another. I do know that you can get oral cancer from dip, and I do know there are carcinogens literally in the tobacco leaves themselves, but the smoke sits in your mouth for a lot less time when smoking a pipe or a cigar than it does when you're dipping.
I don't think it would be controversial at all to say that smoking a pipe is safer than smoking a cigarette because of the differential in inhalation. I think saying they're totally safe would probably be overstepping things unless I saw a study on it, and I don't think many people care to bother with a study like that because nobody'd fund it.
It's also fascinating to see all the conversation elsewhere in these comments about the modern fertilizers and isotopes and post-nuclear-age fallout and various other things tainting modern tobacco leaves... stuff that all the 80-year-old pipe-smokers of the 1800s never had to deal with.
Glad people are talking about the benefits of nicotine. I'm pretty sure there is a genetic element to it, given that some people are natural smokers and others natural nonsmokers. I guess some people seriously benefit from nicotine, even need it for optimal neuro function, while others don't.
I smoke natural tobacco (hand rolled) and I'm doing great unless I overdo it, which, uhm, can happen. I'm looking into vaping and other solutions as an alternative because of that, so thanks for this excellent overview.
I must say though that there is a social component to smoking, something deep, a slightly gritty atmosphere that in itself seems to work against all the BS of the modern world. Hard to put in words, but I experience it as a huge psychological relief. This in itself might promote health. Speaking of psychsomatism: I wouldn't be surprised if the irrational and mouth-foaming panic messaging around smoking for many decades now (black lung lie!) actually is what causes some smokers to get ill, because they have internalized it so much.
If we believe that schizophrenia and ADHD are genetic, then it stands to reason that a propensity to smoke to mitigate the effects of those two things is also genetic.
I personally think that going outside to take smoke breaks once an hour probably has a psychological benefit to modern office workers, whether you actually smoked while you were out there or not.
This is 100% true regarding office workers. Aside from just getting that break from the cubicle farm, smokers tend to be gregarious when smoking. Five or ten minutes spent shooting the shit in the smoker's pit is socially refreshing.
I concur. When I do plant visits and the like I tend to go out and hang out with the smokers once or twice a day to say hi and hear what's happening. The chatting and comradery is notable. Even just the periodic "damn, I'm out, can I bum a smoke?" gives people a reason to interact and do each other small favors, reinforcing group bonds.
The shared ritual of it is certainly an element, but the psychoactive effects of nicotine itself are also a factor. It's the only stimulant I know of that simultaneously relaxes thoughts, making them easier and clearer. There's a reason it was called the peace pipe - no one has ever seen a group of smokers fighting with one another. Instead, they're almost invariably chatting away and laughing in an animated fashion.
A few years back I read how companies were starting to notice that there was an actual organizational benefit to the smoker's pit. It brought together people from various departments in an informal setting in which the usual divisions and hierarchies were temporarily relaxed, and the conversations that were happening there were leading to solutions to vexxing problems. I strongly suspect the drug itself plays a role: you wouldn't get the same effect if they were gathering to snort heroin. The amusing thing was that it was putting management in an uncomfortable position. Officially they were dedicated to a smoke-free environment, and the smoker's pit was meant to be just a step along the way to total eradication of the demon weed at some point in the future. Yet it was proving very valuable for them....
It's notable, though, that the social dynamic we're discussing, of people hanging out in the alley commiserating with each other, is created by tobacco prohibition policies. When everyone could smoke at their desks this social element didn't exist to near the degree it does now.
I think the anti-smoking policies made it more obvious, by concentrating the smokers together and setting up the contrast with the relatively more atomized and isolated office. Previously, you didn't have that, but what you did have was a large fraction (50% or something back in the 50s if I recall) of the population who were more or less permanently under the influence of a drug that made them simultaneously more alert and more relaxed, and generally more sociable. That influence permeated society like a fragrant cloud (or a miasma, YMMV). So instead of hurried conversations in the smoker's pit a few times per day, you had a much larger number of smaller productive interactions spaced throughout the day.
It also depends on line of work: there were always work places, particularly in manufacturing, in which smoking while working was simply not an option for practical reasons, hence "five minutes, smoke 'em if you got 'em". So you'd have a similar effect there, probably. However, and I think this is important, you didn't have the segregation between smokers and non-smokers, so the non-smokers would benefit from the social effects at second hand, if you will.
I don't think it's any accident that this period corresponded to the intellectual, economic, and industrial golden age of our civilization. Some have speculated that the Enlightenment itself was driven by the introduction of coffee and tobacco into the European drug repertoire.
Yes, but smoking always had that social component in various situations such as when having guests, meeting friends, pubs etc. There was a ritual to it, and still is. The bans can sometimes enhance the camaraderie though, partners in crime kind of thing.
If you're not pushing 60 you might not recall smoking in the back, segregated section, on airplanes. Was like a fog. I opposed the banning in bars and restaurants 20 years ago, as too authoritarian, too preachy. It didn't allow for self-selection, differentiation of establishments. But the personal choice or agency was ignored and the dubious science of dangers to workers from second hand smoke won out.
Though I can't join the nostalgia party. Externalities were borne by the non-smokers. Very thankful the stink is gone. Can we start banning cologne?
The current anti-vape PH messaging is bad, but it would be wrong to suggest that the hectoring by PH officials against smoking anywhere everywhere, didn't have a net positive on years lived, and cancers avoided.
It's not hectoring by PH that's the problem. That's merely an annoyance. It's their ability to enforce mandates on the populace with zero democratic oversight. Smokers got the brunt of their zeal until a few years ago, but the lockdowns and the rest of the COVID nonsense exposed everyone else to their managerial tyranny.
You'll note, too, that they were forced to lie to get their way. They couldn't ban indoor smoking on the basis of the smell; instead they had to invent health risks from second hand smoke, which were used to justify the total bans. Only a few years after it was admitted that the studies were deeply flawed, but that did not lead to a reversal of the bans. The mindset continues with the extension of the ban to vaping, which doesn't even leave a smell. None of this is about health. Public health officials are no more than petty tyrants who enjoy power tripping.
Aug 2, 2023·edited Aug 2, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
Well put. Matt Ridley the 'Rational Optimist' has been banging on about vaping as a harm reducer for years.
Vaping was seen as the great moral panic (but the children!!!) just before covid came and yet we made them suffer the most for a disease they didn't get. It's strange that the same folks who hate vapes see needle exchanges, drunk houses and naloxone hand outs as a positive.
I credit vaping to me quitting smoking entirely. I tried the patches, the gum, the cold turkey. None of them were nearly as effective as vaping. Vaping probably saved me a lifetime of illness and premature death.
I don't know if I'd ever quit nicotine due to the nootropic benefits you mentioned. I was diagnosed as ADHD during my adult years, and although I've weaned myself off of Adderall, the nicotine seems to be essential for me to function in a semi competent way.
Vaping annoyed me over time, however. Leaky tanks, which meant you got e-juice in your mouth, forgetting to charge the batteries, and lastly, a noticeable effect on my breathing, caused me to look for alternatives.
I found one in nicotine pouches, or "white snus". Basically it's a snus pouch without tobacco but with nicotine salts and flavoring.
They. Are. Fantastic.
Not only do you not have to worry about leaky juice or batteries or burnt coils, they are discreet. They don't require spitting. They can be enjoyed literally anywhere, from movie theaters to airplanes. If you get the right brand they actually taste good
The first year I carefully monitored my gumline to make sure I wasn't having dental issues due to them and haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary. The only downside is that sometimes they can trigger hiccups.
I don't mean to sound like a shill but these things are goddamn revolutionary and I'd suggest any nicotine addict to try them out( I like the Zyn brand)
My Wife was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when she was 52 years old 4 years ago. The levodopa did very little to help her. The medical team did even less. Her decline was rapid and devastating. It was muscle weakness at first, then her hands and tremors. Last year, a family friend told us about Natural Herbs Centre and their successful Parkinson’s Ayurveda TREATMENT, we visited their website www .naturalherbscentre .com and ordered their Parkinson’s Ayurveda protocol, i am happy to report the treatment effectively treated and reversed her Parkinson’s disease, most of her symptoms stopped, she is able to walk and her writing is becoming great, sleep well and exercise regularly., she is pretty active now
Great stuff, but you left out my favorite theory about lung cancer: it's the radioactive lead in the fertilizer that is used on tobacco plants in the field. Some dude did a study many moons ago and found that lung cancer lungs were full of radioactive lead.
Jul 31, 2023·edited Jul 31, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
This is, quite possibly, the most useful blog post I've read all year. Background: I've been an on again off again smoker for many years. I've quit for separate 5 and 7 year stretches, for several one year and many-months stints, and I've gone years where I smoked only when I'm outside the US (and then later, only when outside the city where I lived). Makes sense? No, of course not. But, addiction doesn't make sense.
I read that nicotine doesn't cause cancer a year ago. I immediately switched to vaping flavorless 5% Juul (now 3%). For me, it's functionally equivalent to 2.5 cigarettes of nicotine per day (one cartridge lasts 4 days). Does it provide the fix that smoking does? No. Is it good enough? Yes, for me. Haven't had a cigarette since.
Your blog post summarized much of the additional data that is so hard to find. Made my week, really. Not only is the CDC not telling the truth, I think they make it affirmatively difficult to learn details. So, thanks a ton for doing the research and providing it to us all.
could you give advice on how much / how often for patches and gum to replicate the effect of smoking a cigarette? The gum I presume acts more like a cigarette, a short term pulse of nicotine, that then drops off, slower or faster. The patch seems like it would provide a sustained dose, which seems like it would be ideal-- but how many square inches of patches should you stick on yourself to optimize the dosage? and how often do you need to change each patch? ie, how long does it take to absorb all of the nicotine from a patch, and you need to replace it? I'd think you could remove them at bed time, and then ? stick them back on in the morning?
I'm afraid I don't know much about either. I have been told that leaving a patch on while you're sleeping gives you some pretty weird dreams, and doesn't actually match your habits well either since ordinary smokers don't intake nicotine while they're sleeping.
I've been a heavy smoker, a heavy chewer, and a heavy user of nicotine gum (all at different times). My personal experience disagrees with your cited data. Nicotine gum messed up my heart with minor chest pains after ~6 months of smoke free use. When i stopped using all nicotine, my heart issues went away.
All I can do is quote science and congratulate you on being off of tobacco entirely.
My experience is limited to cigarettes and vapes. The vapes are definitely cleaner. If you start to get froggy with your nic concentrations in your homebrew juice, however, you can start to see significant adverse nicotine effects.
For sure. I totally understand these limitations. But if I've learned anything these last 3 years... It's that scientific conclusions can be bought and i will always trust my personal experience over the opinions of bought and paid for scientists.
My wife has spent her entire career in public health law, dedicated to stopping smoking. I can assure you that the culture of her world can be completely described by one word: Puritans.
To our public health Puritans, smoking is a repulsive and vulgar habit that is only engaged in by the lower classes. Just like the Prohibitionists of the early 20th century, today’s public health community is morally at peace with killing millions of people if it helps to achieve their ultimate goal, not because they are psychopaths but because they comfortably place any blame on the victim.
The public health community’s goal is not simply to eliminate all tobacco use. They are committed to banishing all form of smoking. Forever. And to them, “smoking” is all encompassing, including vaping, whether the substance is tobacco or cannabis or any synthetic compound.
The public health community is constantly pushing to make smoking socially, culturally and politically anathema. If current smokers persist after all the public health initiatives to the contrary, any bad outcomes are the fault of the weak-willed smoker. The community expects that eventually smoking will become so socially unacceptable and legally untenable as to be indistinguishable from hard drug use.
Of course this is just another war on drugs. But the Puritan strain runs deep throughout American history. We’re going to keep killing people for their own good until everyone is dead.
Let's not forget that the origin of the American progressive movement was alcohol prohibition, and that they were willing to poison industrial alcohol and kill thousands of people in the process to save them from themselves. This is not new.
Maybe the most sinister ploy of the Progressives was the creation of our modern administrative state. By portraying its bureaucrats as disinterested experts, Progressives fooled Americans into believing that public policy could be divorced from politics. Most people still intrinsically trust almost every three-letter federal regulatory agency, from the FAA to the FDA to the EPA (and the ATF, too).
The truth, as revealed by public choice scholars, is that all of these extra-constitutional agencies are filled with activists. Rather than protect the public, most of the time they protect the industries they are charged with regulating. They see their chief mission as advancing their proprietary vision of an equitable society.
The rot is not limited to the public health community. It extends throughout the entire federal administrative state. Unfortunately, we’re likely stuck with this system, as most people trust businesses people and free markets even less that bureaucrats
Its fascinating to watch the "this explains it all" tack. (this is a gentle critique of the thought process, Im not dinging you)
The points on Puritans are very valid, but life and reality is multifactorial.
I can, if pressed, (lets say in a forensic debate context, where I need not believe in the position) make a case for crediting "Wokeness" to the following factors, with as much weight (and specific examples):
AWFLs
Progressive Jews and their response to the Holocaust
Italian American communist labor union agitation
Their cousins in the Chavista movement
SSRIs
Hormone disruptors causing children to doubt their sexuality and their own sex even.
The infiltration of Academia by midwit legacy daughters of the elites (see AWFLs, above)
Lesbian separatist "gender abolition" feminists off all stripes (even "TERFs")
Corporate America getting on the bandwagon to deflect from the demands by Occuply Wall Street
The massive build up of DC beaurocracy under W, leaving masses looking for a new reform every 4 years, lest they must retreat to real jobs in the hinterland.
"Obama"
Title 9 "reforms"
Fatherlessness
etc etc.
The complicated dance of seeminly contradictory and opposed forces brings Boston to mind: the hotbed of Puritanism became the hotbed of emergent 19th C lesbian, feminist, (and yes reformer) circles. From Boston to Puritan to witch trials to Progressive women called witches to modern feminists proudly "reclaiming" the perjorative.
Its complicated, but, in the end the rachet only goes left, even if it pauses, and even rightist movements (Puritans) descendents can appear to push left (factor in that Puritans were "dissenters" in England). Perhaps a calculus that looks at the pushers vs the pushed in regards to "morality" is a better lens. Control freaks on both sides, variously pushing against freer societies or aligning with repressive ones.
Moralist Christians in the US get pushback from leftist, feminist woke who then regulate behaviors along a different axis.
I think in making your case, you need to be careful not to use an overly broad definition of 'wokeness,' one which Newsom for instance is using, one DeSantis may or may not be using, and one I'm definitely not using. When we speak of 'wokeness' around here, we're talking specifically about the moral framework that arises from blending Crenshaw intersectionality, PC, Bivol-Pavda racism redefinition, and virtue climbing behavior. While I do think your list of influences probably has something to do with the animus behind wokeness as defined herein, only a few are majority factors. Let's run through and rate their contribution or causation of wokeness on a 1-10 scale...
* AWFLs: 0, they're too dumb to realize what they're playing with.
* Progressive Jews and their response to the Holocaust: 0, prog Jews don't even know how wokeness works, they'd be against it if they did,
* Italian American communist labor union agitation: ? ... call this a 3, you probably know more about the details of it than I,
* Their cousins in the Chavista movement: ditto
* SSRIs: in my experience, folks who get on these just experience general malaise and have the tops and bottoms of their emotional range chopped off. Not sure how this would contribute to wokeness at all
* Hormone disruptors causing children to doubt their sexuality and their own sex even: 7 if these are significant, but I suspect they're only really a 2 or a 3.
* The infiltration of Academia by midwit legacy daughters of the elites (see AWFLs, above): This is one of your main contributors. Call this an 8.
* Lesbian separatist "gender abolition" feminists off all stripes (even "TERFs"): I'd overlap this with the line above, and again call it around an 8,
* Corporate America getting on the bandwagon to deflect from the demands by Occupy Wall Street: 3. I don't think they did this consciously. I think they just generally react out of short term panic in all things, and DEI was one of those things in the wake of 2020.
* The massive build up of DC beaurocracy under W, leaving masses looking for a new reform every 4 years, lest they must retreat to real jobs in the hinterland: 0. As a former libertarian I feel you on this but I don't think this really influences woke thought much. Wokeness is a completely separate thing from general liberal big government worship.
* "Obama": 0. See above.
* Title 9 "reforms" 5
* Fatherlessness 8.
Thanks for playing this game - its good to refine and critique onself.
We would rate the players differently.
Obama being a 0 is way off though, in a substantive way. Associations (old commies like Ayers), academic influence, "reforms" (Title 9 now allowing trannies) etc. Hes lock, stock and barrel woke, including the derangement from being mixed race in a social justice family, AND if you still consider it wokeness with the CIA mixed in, that influence via his mothers parents and Mr Soetaro.
We might agree on the lesbian (there are very specific cultural and possibly even biological factors here, worth much more exposition)/feminist/AWFL (as their foot soldiers, even when straight) nexus as being a solid 8.
I think the greatest ally the antiwokes have within the LGBT movement is the lesbians, TBH. they are very displeased that their lesbian only events, apps, and dating spaces keep getting crashed by people with penises who claim to be women. They do not like that at all. And they are the 'take no shit' group within the LGBT coalition. If a Pride Parade were a military parade, the lesbians would be the special forces.
I respectfully beg to differ. I spent several years networking via Twitter with Terfs. What I found was the same misandry, disorganization, and political correctness. Not just differences about abortion policy or DEI, but a deeper problem with allyship organization and cooperation with anyone who doesn't tow their party line, that being wokeness is fine with the one exception of transgenderism and how it affects adult women
> That misinformation is killing people, the CDC is doing it on purpose, and the only way to counteract it is to spread the scientific truth through unofficial channels.
Seems to be a lot of that going around, lately...
When folks like Alexandros Moranos were freaking out about the CDC lying about ivermectin or whatever, all I could think of was the "First Time?" meme.
Don't forget the decades of lies about cholesterol and saturated fat.
I'm still not over the lie about tongue zones.
Wherein they knew it was wrong since 1974 but they kept teaching it for decades anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue_map
*talking to a chick*
“yeah i’m kind of an online dissident”
“hehe what does that mean?”
“I tell people how to make strong vape juice from amazon purchases”
THIS DOESN'T WORK BY THE WAY.
I've always been curious about a third nicotine delivery method that is rarely talked about in modern circles; pipes. If you burned pure tobacco leaf without all the additives that modern cigarettes have, and didn't inhale the smoke, how does it change things? I know that in the 1800s and early 1900s, pipe-smoking was remarkably widespread, and had an impact on health that is probably impossible to correlate directly to modern mortality rates. I wonder how much healthier that might have been compared to the cigarettes that replaced them, which were smoked differently and eventually picked up a whole collection of preservatives and additives.
I don't have a great scientific reference for pipes or cigars, and didn't look much into it because the use of them isn't really a public health issue one direction or another. I do know that you can get oral cancer from dip, and I do know there are carcinogens literally in the tobacco leaves themselves, but the smoke sits in your mouth for a lot less time when smoking a pipe or a cigar than it does when you're dipping.
I don't think it would be controversial at all to say that smoking a pipe is safer than smoking a cigarette because of the differential in inhalation. I think saying they're totally safe would probably be overstepping things unless I saw a study on it, and I don't think many people care to bother with a study like that because nobody'd fund it.
It's an interesting question.
It's also fascinating to see all the conversation elsewhere in these comments about the modern fertilizers and isotopes and post-nuclear-age fallout and various other things tainting modern tobacco leaves... stuff that all the 80-year-old pipe-smokers of the 1800s never had to deal with.
To be fair, life expectancy in the 1800s was only about 65, so if the fallout didn't get you then bears or cholera or some other shit probably would.
Glad people are talking about the benefits of nicotine. I'm pretty sure there is a genetic element to it, given that some people are natural smokers and others natural nonsmokers. I guess some people seriously benefit from nicotine, even need it for optimal neuro function, while others don't.
I smoke natural tobacco (hand rolled) and I'm doing great unless I overdo it, which, uhm, can happen. I'm looking into vaping and other solutions as an alternative because of that, so thanks for this excellent overview.
I must say though that there is a social component to smoking, something deep, a slightly gritty atmosphere that in itself seems to work against all the BS of the modern world. Hard to put in words, but I experience it as a huge psychological relief. This in itself might promote health. Speaking of psychsomatism: I wouldn't be surprised if the irrational and mouth-foaming panic messaging around smoking for many decades now (black lung lie!) actually is what causes some smokers to get ill, because they have internalized it so much.
If we believe that schizophrenia and ADHD are genetic, then it stands to reason that a propensity to smoke to mitigate the effects of those two things is also genetic.
I personally think that going outside to take smoke breaks once an hour probably has a psychological benefit to modern office workers, whether you actually smoked while you were out there or not.
This is 100% true regarding office workers. Aside from just getting that break from the cubicle farm, smokers tend to be gregarious when smoking. Five or ten minutes spent shooting the shit in the smoker's pit is socially refreshing.
I concur. When I do plant visits and the like I tend to go out and hang out with the smokers once or twice a day to say hi and hear what's happening. The chatting and comradery is notable. Even just the periodic "damn, I'm out, can I bum a smoke?" gives people a reason to interact and do each other small favors, reinforcing group bonds.
The shared ritual of it is certainly an element, but the psychoactive effects of nicotine itself are also a factor. It's the only stimulant I know of that simultaneously relaxes thoughts, making them easier and clearer. There's a reason it was called the peace pipe - no one has ever seen a group of smokers fighting with one another. Instead, they're almost invariably chatting away and laughing in an animated fashion.
A few years back I read how companies were starting to notice that there was an actual organizational benefit to the smoker's pit. It brought together people from various departments in an informal setting in which the usual divisions and hierarchies were temporarily relaxed, and the conversations that were happening there were leading to solutions to vexxing problems. I strongly suspect the drug itself plays a role: you wouldn't get the same effect if they were gathering to snort heroin. The amusing thing was that it was putting management in an uncomfortable position. Officially they were dedicated to a smoke-free environment, and the smoker's pit was meant to be just a step along the way to total eradication of the demon weed at some point in the future. Yet it was proving very valuable for them....
It's notable, though, that the social dynamic we're discussing, of people hanging out in the alley commiserating with each other, is created by tobacco prohibition policies. When everyone could smoke at their desks this social element didn't exist to near the degree it does now.
I think the anti-smoking policies made it more obvious, by concentrating the smokers together and setting up the contrast with the relatively more atomized and isolated office. Previously, you didn't have that, but what you did have was a large fraction (50% or something back in the 50s if I recall) of the population who were more or less permanently under the influence of a drug that made them simultaneously more alert and more relaxed, and generally more sociable. That influence permeated society like a fragrant cloud (or a miasma, YMMV). So instead of hurried conversations in the smoker's pit a few times per day, you had a much larger number of smaller productive interactions spaced throughout the day.
It also depends on line of work: there were always work places, particularly in manufacturing, in which smoking while working was simply not an option for practical reasons, hence "five minutes, smoke 'em if you got 'em". So you'd have a similar effect there, probably. However, and I think this is important, you didn't have the segregation between smokers and non-smokers, so the non-smokers would benefit from the social effects at second hand, if you will.
I don't think it's any accident that this period corresponded to the intellectual, economic, and industrial golden age of our civilization. Some have speculated that the Enlightenment itself was driven by the introduction of coffee and tobacco into the European drug repertoire.
Yes, but smoking always had that social component in various situations such as when having guests, meeting friends, pubs etc. There was a ritual to it, and still is. The bans can sometimes enhance the camaraderie though, partners in crime kind of thing.
If you're not pushing 60 you might not recall smoking in the back, segregated section, on airplanes. Was like a fog. I opposed the banning in bars and restaurants 20 years ago, as too authoritarian, too preachy. It didn't allow for self-selection, differentiation of establishments. But the personal choice or agency was ignored and the dubious science of dangers to workers from second hand smoke won out.
Though I can't join the nostalgia party. Externalities were borne by the non-smokers. Very thankful the stink is gone. Can we start banning cologne?
The current anti-vape PH messaging is bad, but it would be wrong to suggest that the hectoring by PH officials against smoking anywhere everywhere, didn't have a net positive on years lived, and cancers avoided.
It's not hectoring by PH that's the problem. That's merely an annoyance. It's their ability to enforce mandates on the populace with zero democratic oversight. Smokers got the brunt of their zeal until a few years ago, but the lockdowns and the rest of the COVID nonsense exposed everyone else to their managerial tyranny.
You'll note, too, that they were forced to lie to get their way. They couldn't ban indoor smoking on the basis of the smell; instead they had to invent health risks from second hand smoke, which were used to justify the total bans. Only a few years after it was admitted that the studies were deeply flawed, but that did not lead to a reversal of the bans. The mindset continues with the extension of the ban to vaping, which doesn't even leave a smell. None of this is about health. Public health officials are no more than petty tyrants who enjoy power tripping.
Well put. Matt Ridley the 'Rational Optimist' has been banging on about vaping as a harm reducer for years.
Vaping was seen as the great moral panic (but the children!!!) just before covid came and yet we made them suffer the most for a disease they didn't get. It's strange that the same folks who hate vapes see needle exchanges, drunk houses and naloxone hand outs as a positive.
That is the WEIRDEST thing of all. If we decided to start handing out vape pens with the methadone they'd go ape shit.
I credit vaping to me quitting smoking entirely. I tried the patches, the gum, the cold turkey. None of them were nearly as effective as vaping. Vaping probably saved me a lifetime of illness and premature death.
I don't know if I'd ever quit nicotine due to the nootropic benefits you mentioned. I was diagnosed as ADHD during my adult years, and although I've weaned myself off of Adderall, the nicotine seems to be essential for me to function in a semi competent way.
Vaping annoyed me over time, however. Leaky tanks, which meant you got e-juice in your mouth, forgetting to charge the batteries, and lastly, a noticeable effect on my breathing, caused me to look for alternatives.
I found one in nicotine pouches, or "white snus". Basically it's a snus pouch without tobacco but with nicotine salts and flavoring.
They. Are. Fantastic.
Not only do you not have to worry about leaky juice or batteries or burnt coils, they are discreet. They don't require spitting. They can be enjoyed literally anywhere, from movie theaters to airplanes. If you get the right brand they actually taste good
The first year I carefully monitored my gumline to make sure I wasn't having dental issues due to them and haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary. The only downside is that sometimes they can trigger hiccups.
I don't mean to sound like a shill but these things are goddamn revolutionary and I'd suggest any nicotine addict to try them out( I like the Zyn brand)
That's fascinating, thanks for sharing. Do you order them on the internet?
I buy them locally. Gas stations and the like usually stock them, but you can find them online also
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Fascinating, what's in it?
Great stuff, but you left out my favorite theory about lung cancer: it's the radioactive lead in the fertilizer that is used on tobacco plants in the field. Some dude did a study many moons ago and found that lung cancer lungs were full of radioactive lead.
There's definitely lead-210 in tobacco leaves. That's known.
This is, quite possibly, the most useful blog post I've read all year. Background: I've been an on again off again smoker for many years. I've quit for separate 5 and 7 year stretches, for several one year and many-months stints, and I've gone years where I smoked only when I'm outside the US (and then later, only when outside the city where I lived). Makes sense? No, of course not. But, addiction doesn't make sense.
I read that nicotine doesn't cause cancer a year ago. I immediately switched to vaping flavorless 5% Juul (now 3%). For me, it's functionally equivalent to 2.5 cigarettes of nicotine per day (one cartridge lasts 4 days). Does it provide the fix that smoking does? No. Is it good enough? Yes, for me. Haven't had a cigarette since.
Your blog post summarized much of the additional data that is so hard to find. Made my week, really. Not only is the CDC not telling the truth, I think they make it affirmatively difficult to learn details. So, thanks a ton for doing the research and providing it to us all.
could you give advice on how much / how often for patches and gum to replicate the effect of smoking a cigarette? The gum I presume acts more like a cigarette, a short term pulse of nicotine, that then drops off, slower or faster. The patch seems like it would provide a sustained dose, which seems like it would be ideal-- but how many square inches of patches should you stick on yourself to optimize the dosage? and how often do you need to change each patch? ie, how long does it take to absorb all of the nicotine from a patch, and you need to replace it? I'd think you could remove them at bed time, and then ? stick them back on in the morning?
I'm afraid I don't know much about either. I have been told that leaving a patch on while you're sleeping gives you some pretty weird dreams, and doesn't actually match your habits well either since ordinary smokers don't intake nicotine while they're sleeping.
Great writeup! Will send/share widely!
Popcorn Lung update:
https://www.protectingtaxpayers.org/wp-content/uploads/THR-101-Popcorn-Lung.pdf
The most powerful force in the universe is entropy.
The second is old habits dying hard.
I've been a heavy smoker, a heavy chewer, and a heavy user of nicotine gum (all at different times). My personal experience disagrees with your cited data. Nicotine gum messed up my heart with minor chest pains after ~6 months of smoke free use. When i stopped using all nicotine, my heart issues went away.
All I can do is quote science and congratulate you on being off of tobacco entirely.
My experience is limited to cigarettes and vapes. The vapes are definitely cleaner. If you start to get froggy with your nic concentrations in your homebrew juice, however, you can start to see significant adverse nicotine effects.
For sure. I totally understand these limitations. But if I've learned anything these last 3 years... It's that scientific conclusions can be bought and i will always trust my personal experience over the opinions of bought and paid for scientists.
thoughts on other nicotine delivery options like patch, gum, or even pipe/cigar compared to cigarette?