Social contagion can have significant effects on social issues like this.

Nowadays I have a pretty big nicotine consumption and probably extremely marginal nootropic effects.

Did you get addicted to the gum or the patch?

That's something important to consider when reading about experiences on the internet. There are people who are relatively resistant to addiction. When they talk about their experiences, they make it sound like it's no big deal, and it's not to them. But that's not how it is for everyone.

(I was turned onto this after listening to an interview with Dr. Peter Attia [haven't yet made up my mind on whether he is a huckster])

To quit, I switched to vaping for a few weeks, then tapered the nicotine concentration to zero over the course of a month or two. Cigarettes have MAOIs which make it more addictive which is why I switched.

I was irritable for weeks and still get the urge to smoke sometimes(it's been over 5 years since I quit). I don't recommend starting.

I've listened to him off and on, and think he's ok. He tests on himself pretty relentlessly, and still sees patients (though it's a boutique practice). He also appears open to new ideas as new research presents itself. And while crazy people can come from anywhere, he also has all the proper credentials.

There's this guy who hates him lol: https://www.libertariannews.org/2016/03/07/dr-peter-attia-re...

Finally, if you haven't already, you should find the podcast episode where he talks about Theranos. Pretty wild that he was asked to join and turned Holmes down.

You are right. I ended up with easily maintained hypertension and the urge to smoke that probably will never go away.(While on it, I also had significantly worse anxiety, decreased sleep quality, and bubbly urine. I definitely don't recommend trying it)

But the social dynamics between it and heroin are the same. If we normalize its use and downplay its risks, more people will use it. And the physical and social harms from heroin use are far worse than nicotine.

You can't just lie to people and tell them that everything is deadly or they're gonna question everything else you've said. That's basically what DARE was.

I know a chainsaw is dangerous. But listening to every Youtuber lecture me about how I have lock out tag out to change a lightbulb my own home and every Redditor jump at the opportunity to engage in a monologue about how I should wear safety classes when I use a screwdriver sure lends a lot of legitimacy to the people who say their dad never wore PPE and retired with all his limbs so it must be fine.

How many people are going to storm a national capitol because of what they see online?

It all sounds farcical and easy to dismiss until you actually put some thought into it.

Most people that fall into heavy addiction are probably driven there more by chaotic circumstances than intellectual considerations.

The issues is "drug decriminalization" people treating addictions like it's not a real problem for many people.

Many of these folks want it to get to a point where you can quite easily buy heroin and suffer no legal consequences.

I'm not saying our drug laws are just or can't be reformed but the fact that heroin is illegal prevents a LOT of people from using it. How many people will then use, aided by these pronouncements that "Heroin isn't actually that addictive!" and ruin their lives?

We already have an opioid epidemic in this country that has destroyed communities.

There's a middle ground between our terrible war on drugs and the naive "make it all legal and experiment with heroin!"

Do you know a lot of people who have expressed to you that they would use heroin recreationally if only it were legal? My gut is that the number isn’t large.

My impression of the evidence from places that have tried decriminalization (eg Portugal) is that the number of people who use and then are able to get their lives back on the rails is higher than the extra people who use because it’s decriminalized.

What if people tell them it's not addictive? And now it's not illegal?

Also, my understanding of most drug legalization is that the intent is to legalize usage/possession, not distribution. This is done with the intent to make it easier/safer to gain treatment and decrease addiction.

What illegal does is make it far more likely to die from using heroin.

Lack of access (or not knowing how to access it) comes to mind, among many other reasons.

I don’t know if you read it, but it also talks about how many deaths are from bad education (not understanding drug interactions, i.e. between two depressants), and bad drugs (i.e. lacing heroin with fentanyl) with no easy way for users to test their drugs.

It further goes on to discuss that addiction treatment in the US is terrible precisely because it focuses on the drugs as a pathology and does not consider the holistic person or helping the person solve their underlying problems.

Progressive drug policy isn’t “legalize it all”, it is “prevent needless deaths and treat addiction properly”. It has been for some time. Here are garden variety articles I found about these policies being implemented in the wild:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/04/allow-festiv...

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/statemen...

I wholeheartedly agree. a couple google searches showed buying alcohol for a minor was a $1000 fine, but heroin possession for personal use is $20000 and a year in jail.

I think there's room to scale back the penalties and still be a deterrent. I think there's room to scale up addiction recovery.

Hell, keep the horrible penalties, but waive them if the accused, with counseling and whatever other support makes sense, can stay clean for a year.

So much of the system is about papering over problems rather than fixing the root cause.

The middle ground you seek is already defined clearly. Are you sure your perspective here is as informed as it could be?