“The whole problem with nicotine is that it happens to be
found in cigarettes,” she told me. “People can’t
disassociate the two in their mind, nicotine and smoking.
It’s not the general public that annoys me, it’s the
scientists. When I tell them about the studies, they should
say, ‘Wow.’ But they say, ‘Oh well, that might be true, but
I don’t see the point.’ It’s not even ignorance. It’s their
preconceived ideas and inflexibility.”
...
“To my knowledge, nicotine is the most reliable cognitive
enhancer that we currently have, bizarrely,” said Jennifer
Rusted, professor of experimental psychology at Sussex
University in Britain when we spoke. “The cognitive
enhancing effects of nicotine in a normal population are
more robust than you get with any other agent. With
Provigil, for instance, the evidence for cognitive benefits
is nowhere near as strong as it is for nicotine.”
From
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-a-nicotine-p...I've never smoked (though I tried and failed to be pick up vaping 10 years ago), but I think it should be abundantly clear that for centuries many smokers have been effectively self-medicating, either to blunt some mental disorder (Schizophrenia, etc) or for what today we might call a cognitive enhancer. It's just that the addictiveness of smoking has masked that phenomenon. Vaping is unmasking it because nicotine alone is not nearly as addictive as smoking. (Seems unclear if vaping is as non-addictive as, e.g, nicotine patches or gum. Probably not, but we'll see.)
I've never smoked (though I tried and failed to be pick up vaping 10 years ago), but I think it should be abundantly clear that for centuries many smokers have been effectively self-medicating, either to blunt some mental disorder (Schizophrenia, etc) or for what today we might call a cognitive enhancer. It's just that the addictiveness of smoking has masked that phenomenon. Vaping is unmasking it because nicotine alone is not nearly as addictive as smoking. (Seems unclear if vaping is as non-addictive as, e.g, nicotine patches or gum. Probably not, but we'll see.)