Except alcohol is directly harmful, nicotine is barely harmful.

And nobody has ever died from nicotine withdrawal. Or smashed their car after inhaling nicotine.

Literally tens of millions of people have died because of nicotine addiction, so your comment is so frankly ridiculous it doesn't even deserve a more considered response.

That's not entirely fair because there's a distinction between nicotine and smoking.

The method of delivery killed those nicotine addicts. None of those nicotine addicts died as a direct result of what nicotine does to the body. Combusting tobacco and inhaling the smoke is what killed them (ignoring chewing or snorting).

If I used a patch, I can continue my nicotine addiction without fear of lung disease. I can't do the same with smoking.

There's no method of delivering a habitual psychoactive dose of alcohol that doesn't cause harm.

But all said and done, I'm not sure vaping nicotine, with all those flavours, has been proven safe. There's a lot of talk about popcorn lung.

I read their comment as making a distinction between nicotine intake of arbitrary delivery system vs smoke inhalation of a tobacco + MAOI panoply ('cigarettes'). I can envision a world where nicotine addicts don't have to hurt themselves nearly as much to get their fix. I say that with the disclaimer that I don't think that makes it good, per se - just pragmatically a lot better.