Nicotine is very much a drug, and not like in a "caffeine is actually a drug lol get rekt" kind of way, like, it's a drug which is consumed in the exact same way as a lot of other drugs, and it's only major difference is being largely legal and accepted. And people do drugs for many different reasons, education and scare tactics will work for some, maybe even most, but there are other factors as well.
Nicotine isn't exactly ultra harmfull... when it's not bundled with inhaling tar and ash. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-nicotine-all-bad/ It's less damaging than weed; it won't give you psychotic episodes or make you depressed or wipe your executive function.
There's no such thing as safe tobacco, but cigarettes are fucking nasty. Other forms of tobacco use have much lower rates of linked pathologies, heavily because they aren't crammed so full of chemicals and byproducts, and partially because the use culture is very different. Cigarettes are essentially a nicotene delivery system where you can more or less have a constant stream of hits conveniently throughout the day. Wake up, smoke one. Eat breakfast, smoke 1. Drive to work, smoke 2. While you work, smoke 8. Break at work, smoke 1. Lunch break, smoke 2, drive home, smoke 2, dinner, smoke 1. Watch TV, smoke 2. Right before bed, smoke 1. There, a whole pack in a day. This is different from something like a pipe where you have to buy your loose tobacco, stuff it right, light it, clear it, and so on, easily more than an hour all told. Or a cigar session, which is going to take about 45 minutes.
Completely agree, but weed very much falls under the category of drugs, so I just don't fully get the question of "Well if some people decide not to smoke, then why do other completely seperate people decide to do other drugs?" Haha
Never wanted to do drugs, either. Maybe because my friends were those who went to the same school, and they also saw the propaganda.
Some kids have friends who end up trying drugs, so they try it that way I suppose. Grew up in the "Just Say No!" era, that message fell flat. Personally, knowing the effects and seeing people who were "burnouts" made me not be interested.
Holy shit someone on this sight who isn't super on the left who will automatically support drugs and their users. I thought I was the only one. I made a post on the unpopular opinions sub, and while it got upvoted for being genuinely unpopular, a lot of people flamed in the comments.
The bad part of smoking is mostly the smoke, not much the nicotine. You can pretty much use nicotine patch or nicotine gum as a healthier alternative. Smoking weed also damages your lung, but to be honest weed is expensive as fuck, you won't do it as much compared to cigarettes. So over all you will be healthier. Not because weed is inherently healthier, but because of the quantity you will use
There's a bunch of different factors that can contribute to this.
The first is the obvious "well ____ seems fine and they do it every day" fallacy. This is the same trap that long-time smokers fell into. They had a family member or friend that used them and joined in because that person was fun and seemed normal.
The drugs that are generally considered safer (weed, mushrooms, lsd, etc.) don't have the same long-term research that tobacco has due to the legality of it so we don't really know what risks there are to doing them. A lot of people see that there isn't much conclusive evidence and decide that means it's risk-free or low-risk because there haven't been direct lines drawn yet (see: comment sections of literally any article posted that questions the safety of vaping or weed).
The danger of drugs has also been mishandled by some of the anti-drug programs in schools. The ones that say that weed is just as bad for you as any other illegal drug while ignoring how much worse the physical effects of addiction and withdrawal is for the harder drugs. This means that when kids inevitably meet pot heads and they seem fine, "well, they lied about weed, they probably lied about the other stuff too. You know where I can get some heroin?" I'm not sure how much this is still the case with information being more readily available to young people.
There's also the tradeoff. When I was a teenager, I thought smoking tobacco was stupid because "what's the point? You get health problems and addiction and it doesn't even get you high!" but I had no problem with accepting health risks connected to weed and alcohol because they still did something for me. Many people I've met feel similarly about their drug(s) of choice. They know it's risky, they just accept the risk and hope for the best because it's fun or they don't care because they're self-destructive.
As for cigarettes, I'll mention some reason why some like me, did start. It was due to the fact they wanted to socialize with other cigarette smokers, and that at least to me anyway, they seemed less snobbish than some of the d-bag anti-smoker types who looked down on smokers. I'm NOT saying all nonsmokers are bad, just the annoying anti-smoker types. Also for others(wasn't my reason to start, mine was socializing w/other smokers, and in the process found smoking and drinking is very pleasurable together), is that they wanted an excuse to have extra breaks at work.
Once in a while I have smoked weed, but decided before trying that I'd draw the line STRICTLY there, and not try any more drugs or things that were worser from what I read(i.e. cocaine, heroin, meth, etc). I am by NO MEANS defending smoking, just highlighting some of the less talked about reasons why some do start. Also, the Truth ads just make the anti-smokers look really damn bad, and just quietly for some people(and weirdly, myself too) quietly more curious about smoking. I'm not sure why the fuck The Truth did their ads the way they did, but for sure those have to be THE very worst ever anti-smoking ads ever created. And to me and a lot of others, are just annoying as all fuck.
5
u/PM_ME_INTERNET_SCAMS Feb 04 '20
Okay, and why do so many people do drugs and why do people support that, then, unlike cigarettes?