Removing/reducing nicotine in Cigarettes - good idea or nanny state gone to far?

I don't know who even smokes these days. Chavs and people over 50?
A lot of people with severe mental illness smoke. Not only does it help the symptoms somewhat but is also a great way to make friends whilst in psychiatric hospitals and out in the community for people who normally feel isolated.
 
If I didn't have to smell the smoke on them or walk through clouds of smoke leaving pubs etc. I wouldn't care if they smoke. But I do, so I have no issue with price increases. Although last thing I read said price increases has not reduced alcohol consumption.
 
The minimum smoking age should be raised annually by one year. So this year it's 18 (or whatever), next year it's 19, then it's 20.

It's not rocket science, within a generation, nobody will smoke. I've been saying this for over twenty years.

Because prohibition has been a really effective policy on stopping people smoking cannabis and other drugs. :cry:

I'm definitely voting nanny state on this one, my body my choice and all that, seems a very simple concept to grasp when it comes to abortion which is a far more ethical grey area but statists can't seem to grasp the concept when it comes to drugs.

Not to mention that with the dark net and cryptocurrency, drug prohibition is becoming less effective year on year, it seems that every week a new darknet drug marketplace opens.
 
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Smoking is great these days because it's just a tax on the stupid.
So, myself, my wife, 3 of my friends and pretty much 90% of the people I know are stupid?
Having gone nearly 3 weeks without a smoke myself and my wife is just occasionally vaping now, we have purchased a car.

Driving is great these days because it's just a tax on the stupid.
 
Why are young adults starting to smoke?

We get customers asking us what's the cheapest cigs or 'rolly baccy'.

Get customers buying 200 cigs for £100-130 (depending on brand) and don't seem to care about the money.
 
There's a woman who every day comes in buys a pack of Silk Cut - £14, our most expensive pack and £16 on a litre of vodka a day. I wish I had almost £11k pa to spend after my bills.
 
So, myself, my wife, 3 of my friends and pretty much 90% of the people I know are stupid?
Having gone nearly 3 weeks without a smoke myself and my wife is just occasionally vaping now, we have purchased a car.

Driving is great these days because it's just a tax on the stupid.

Yes. The lower the individual's intelligence the more likely they are to smoke so it would suggest that you may well be.

There are about 2-3 benefits (If you can actually call them that) and a million drawbacks to smoking. Please tell me why it isn't stupid to smoke?

Of the very few people that I know who smoke they all want to quit and always have done. Smokers don't even want to smoke and I think that says a lot.
 
Why are young adults starting to smoke?

We get customers asking us what's the cheapest cigs or 'rolly baccy'.

Get customers buying 200 cigs for £100-130 (depending on brand) and don't seem to care about the money.
Customers who don't care about spending lots of money? Now THEY are the sort of customers I love, God bless 'em.

There's two types of gaffs I refuse to visit, those where they expect you to take your shoes off, and those where smoking in the house is not permitted. When 'er indoors has one of her Christmas or birthday soirees many guests are aghast and ecstatic that they can smoke in our house, like it's just amazing.

I don't even smoke myself any more but anyone visiting here can smoke to their heart's content and good luck to them.

Then there's those with "I'd offer you a drink but can see you are driving, would you like some cordial?".

No, I'd like a small gin and tonic or a half of beer, and I will still be safely within the law...

Finally there are the pub goers who whisper excitedly "That man has had four pints to my knowledge and is getting in his car to drive away".

Like I am a copper, I'm out for a quiet drink, not to police everyone's actions. Round here it would be a full time job, and an easy way to be the most detested guy in the pub. Even the vicar used to stagger out to his car, assuming he could remember where he'd abandoned it.
 
Had a few friends that were 'secret' smokers. ie their partner didn't know they smoked. Didn't smoke at home, in the garden - but out. One was caught by husband after seeing her outside a pub in town smoking and the others, gradually quit. Lockdown helped them.

Even with mints, perfume - smoke smell lingers.
 
?? You saying nicotine isn't addictive?

No, I'm saying exactly what I did say.

If you want a rephrasing - Studies found that nicotine is nowhere near as addictive as people assume, because in order to achieve any success in blind reinforcement tests, they had to use much lower quantities of nic than that found in tobacco products, and mostly with those who had never smoked... Even then, the best they ever managed was around 50% reinforcement.
This is further substantiated by the high number of vapers who quite readily reduce the nicotine content of their vapes, often going to 0%.

Those conducting the studies concluded that nicotine addiction depends mostly on individual physical factors, with some people being much more susceptible to it than others.
 
No, I'm saying exactly what I did say.

If you want a rephrasing - Studies found that nicotine is nowhere near as addictive as people assume, because in order to achieve any success in blind reinforcement tests, they had to use much lower quantities of nic than that found in tobacco products, and mostly with those who had never smoked... Even then, the best they ever managed was around 50% reinforcement.
This is further substantiated by the high number of vapers who quite readily reduce the nicotine content of their vapes, often going to 0%.

Those conducting the studies concluded that nicotine addiction depends mostly on individual physical factors, with some people being much more susceptible to it than others.
Nicotine is nowhere near as addictive as "people assume" - what kind of benchmark is that? :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

Nicotine is the addictive component in cigarettes - you are making an utter nonsense point to act smart by regurgitating something irrelevant that you have read.
 
Nicotine is nowhere near as addictive as "people assume" - what kind of benchmark is that? :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

Nicotine is the addictive component in cigarettes - you are making an utter nonsense point to act smart by regurgitating something irrelevant that you have read.
The benchmark is people such as yourself bleating about nicotine and ignoring the other factors.
If nicotine is the addictive element as you assert, why do around 50% of addiction-positive blind test subjects exhibit addiction to the placebos? There's no nicotine (or indeed any other particularly addictive substance, like caffeine or sugar) in them, yet they still return addictive results...
If nicotine is the addictive factor, why do so many nicotine-centric alternatives fail to get people off the smokes? If nicotine were all it took, NRTs would be 100% effective.

There are other factors and contributors at play, of which nicotine is only one and not even the main.
For example, you also said "People don't just smoke because it is "pleasant" (as it is distinctly unpleasant)" - Some people actually do, though which aspects they individually find pleasant is subjective. Some get into cigars or pipes because of the smells. There are also people who were non-smokers, yet took up vaping using liquids with no nicotine content.
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The benchmark is people such as yourself bleating about nicotine and ignoring the other factors.
If nicotine is the addictive element as you assert, why do around 50% of addiction-positive blind test subjects exhibit addiction to the placebos? There's no nicotine (or indeed any other particularly addictive substance, like caffeine or sugar) in them, yet they still return addictive results...
If nicotine is the addictive factor, why do so many nicotine-centric alternatives fail to get people off the smokes? If nicotine were all it took, NRTs would be 100% effective.

There are other factors and contributors at play, of which nicotine is only one and not even the main.
For example, you also said "People don't just smoke because it is "pleasant" (as it is distinctly unpleasant)" - Some people actually do, though which aspects they individually find pleasant is subjective. Some get into cigars or pipes because of the smells. There are also people who were non-smokers, yet took up vaping using liquids with no nicotine content.
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:cry: :cry: :cry:
 
A sweeping staement I know, but I feel the friends who smoke (normal fags, not narcotics....) are generally more relaxed and less stressful people than my none smoking friends. Since giving up about 2 years ago I do sometimes feel i handle stress less seamlessly than when i was on 10 or so a day. It was a mixture of the Chinese virus and the cost of the bloody things that made me give up, but I was more of a social smoker than an addict, and didn't find it particularly hard. I could go a week without one, but if i went out to the (infamous...;) ) pub I'd just go mad and could get through 20 in one evening.
 
Read the main post. Much more qualified people than you and I have formed exactly that opinion.
Yeah, the highly qualified FDA... and that's kinda what's bothering me, given it was a set of FDA studies conducted over two decades that demonstrated how greatly reducing the nicotine content only slightly reduced nicotine addition and carbon monoxide levels in the body, yet still had no effect on smoking cessation.... The FDA also ran several other studies, as did other bodies, to combine low nic cigs with some other incentives, from behavioural alteration to monetary reward, but with a similar lack of results.

Happily it did not, as hoped by the tobacco companies, result in the test subjects smoking more, either, but it still didn't work. Like I said, nicotine is not the primary factor in this.
 
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