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Nicotine as a useful stimulant

gwern.net

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Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#41

Post by spion »

michaelwww wrote: post #24
glibgil wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you get off nicotine by going on nicotine?

I believe it's called "tapering off" The cravings go away as the dosage goes down, since a sip isn't enough to increase or maintain tolerance.

Actually, nicotine has a rather short half-life of about 2 hours [1], which means even smaller doses quickly restore it close to previous levels. So in essence, tapering off is like going through many shorter withdrawals (doesn't sound scary but its actually a bit of a torture compared to quitting cold turkey).

[1]: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/documentStore/m/a/u/mau01c00/...

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#42

Post by gwern »

spion wrote: post #28

To the OP: curious to know, are you a user? Have you been off nicotine longer than 2 months in the past year?

> To the OP: curious to know, are you a user?

Yes. Reading the literature, I found no reason to not try out nicotine. I discuss my personal experiences in http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#nicotine

> Have you been off nicotine longer than 2 months in the past year?

Why would I do that if I find it useful, as I do? But I have been keeping a log of nicotine use since June (to use it as a covariate in other self-experiments), which indicates I easily skip it for long periods: 03, 07 June 2013: 4mg gum; 22 June 2013: 2mg gum; 24 June 2013: 2mg gum; 1 July: 2mg gum; 9 July, 2mg gum; 20 July, 2mg gum; 20 August, 3mg gum; 5, 6 September, 1mg gum; 20 Sept, 1mg gum.

More generally, I received my current batch of nicotine gum (96x4mg) back on 28 December 2011, or 640 days ago; I still have 2 pieces left over, so that means I've been using the nicotine at an average rate of (94 * 4) / 640 = 0.6mg/day. (This includes the August-November 2012 period where I was taking gum every other day for a dual n-back experiment.)

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#43

Post by gwern »

lolwutf wrote: post #6

I'm very sad this article doesn't mention the most interesting quality of nicotine: depending on how it is administered, it will act either as a sedative, or a stimulant! There's not (m)any other molecules out there that do this, so it's quite a novel research target!

That is a pretty curious aspect of nicotine (and one I mentioned in my personal experiences when I was wondering if the reason the e-cig water was not helping was due to taking too much nicotine), but it isn't mentioned because I didn't see how it was relevant to any of the questions discussed.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#44

Post by gwern »

maxander wrote: post #37

If nicotine is supposedly "not highly addictive," what heretofore obscure, hideous compounds are lurking in cigarettes that accounts for their legendary addictiveness? MAOIs? True, they give withdrawal symptoms. But despite being a widely used pharmaceutical, to my knowledge no MAOI-only drug has seen anything resembling the abuse patterns of tobacco. The hand-wavy "other compounds" that the article mentions and then…

> The hand-wavy "other compounds" that the article mentions and then doesn't describe? Anyone know what those would be?

Excuse me? I went to considerable pains to give the primary source citations & jailbreak the PDFs.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#45

Post by gwern »

yetanotherphd wrote: post #34
tunap wrote: post #4

Once demonization has eradicated tobacco from the public's grasp, these benefits may be sold back in pill form for an even greater margin of profit. Yay Capitalism!

More like tobacco is rightly demonized for its harmful effects on health, but nicotine, which does not have these effects, is not. The market responds to informed consumers by providing nicotine without the tobacco. I would chalk this this one up as a case of capitalism working [for the general good [this clarification shouldn't be necessary but it always is]].

> The market responds to informed consumers by providing nicotine without the tobacco.

Well, once tobacco has been socially stigmatized and huge taxes placed on it, anyway. I'm not sure nicotine gum/patches/e-cigs existed before the War on Smoking. I expect you could buy purified nicotine oil from chemical suppliers, but it'd be up to you to figure out how to use it (and do so without killing yourself).

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#46

Post by jey »

maxander wrote: post #37

If nicotine is supposedly "not highly addictive," what heretofore obscure, hideous compounds are lurking in cigarettes that accounts for their legendary addictiveness? MAOIs? True, they give withdrawal symptoms. But despite being a widely used pharmaceutical, to my knowledge no MAOI-only drug has seen anything resembling the abuse patterns of tobacco. The hand-wavy "other compounds" that the article mentions and then…

Good question. I had assumed that he was referring to a synergistic effect of MAOIs and Nicotine causing increased addictive potential, but I really have no idea whether monoamine oxidase is involved in the metabolization of nicotine.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#47

Post by tarikjn »

maxander wrote: post #37

If nicotine is supposedly "not highly addictive," what heretofore obscure, hideous compounds are lurking in cigarettes that accounts for their legendary addictiveness? MAOIs? True, they give withdrawal symptoms. But despite being a widely used pharmaceutical, to my knowledge no MAOI-only drug has seen anything resembling the abuse patterns of tobacco. The hand-wavy "other compounds" that the article mentions and then…

I believe what is described is that nicotine is a potent agent for habit-forming, so you don't get as much addicted to the nicotine itself as the habit you have formed while taking nicotine, ie. smoking. The article describe utilizing this process to one's advantage by taking safe forms of nicotine while forming desired habits or (i.e working, learning etc.).

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#48

Post by [deleted] »

cnp wrote: post #27
whalesalad wrote: post #2

I can't imagine life without stimulants. I hope to move off into the woods one day and live a completely natural lifestyle for a while. Reset myself. No caffeine, no nicotine, no amphetamines. Just me, a dog, and a nice ranch property in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, nicotine is a staple of my day-to-day. I quit smoking a long time ago, now I stick to Swedish snus and vaping. For a period I was chewing gum too. D…

In an attempt to quit smoking I just discovered the vaporization method and WOW -- I'm so impressed. Its actually enjoyable in the way that smoking is enjoyable, and the stimulant kick is very real.

[deleted]

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#49

Post by spion »

gwern wrote: post #42
spion wrote: post #28

To the OP: curious to know, are you a user? Have you been off nicotine longer than 2 months in the past year?

> To the OP: curious to know, are you a user? Yes. Reading the literature, I found no reason to not try out nicotine. I discuss my personal experiences in http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#nicotine > Have you been off nicotine longer than 2 months in the past year? Why would I do that if I find it useful, as I do? But I have been keeping a log of nicotine use since June (to use it as a covariate in other self-experimen…

Ah, so basically, about 20 times less than an average smoker (compared to your calculated average), and about 4-5 times less for the peak days, if I'm calculating correctly?

That is, assuming a 1-pack-a-day smoker of a 0.6mg / cigarette brand ...

Okay, I guess - I wish you the best of luck, and your usage seems well controlled. Though, the withdrawal I went through when I quit - I wouldn't wish it to my worst enemy. So I hope you don't mind if I say "be careful" (even though I can already see that you are :)

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#50

Post by gwern »

spion wrote: post #18

"Effects of nicotine on perceptual speed" [1] is behind a paywall, and I can't tell from the abstract whether the results also apply to non-smokers. However, the abstract of another of the articles, "Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Performance in a Simulated Driving Task" [2] states that the effect was only measured on minimally abstinent smokers. Are any of the other studies measuring the beneficial effects of nicot…

> "Effects of nicotine on perceptual speed" [1] is behind a paywall, and I can't tell from the abstract whether the results also apply to non-smokers.

I need to apologize a little bit here; I've been checking my article and it seems I inserted the wrong link for that citation. The one I actually wanted is http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02245346 'Smoking and Raven IQ', Stough et al 1994. Also paywalled, but I'm working on getting them. (My university access doesn't cover SpringerLink so I need to ask other people to get them for me.)

> Because in my experience its completely, totally wrong. I could clearly separate 2 phases that I went through when I quit:

Let me point out that your subsequent lines indicate you are talking about your addiction to tobacco, not to nicotine.

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