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Nicotine as a useful stimulant

gwern.net

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Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#51

Post by michaelwww »

spion wrote: post #41
michaelwww wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/...

My withdrawal symptoms don't become noticeable until the 4 hour mark. Quitting cold-turkey from a high daily intake level can be quite difficult for some people, who have intense emotional reactions. This doesn't happen for everyone, so those that say "quit cold turkey, I did" don't know how bad it gets for some. If I understand right, it's about how fast normal dopamine production recovers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

Edit: > which means even smaller doses quickly restore it close to previous levels

Not for me it doesn't. I'm quite aware of how much nicotine I have in my system and what effect it's having.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#52

Post by michaelwww »

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.

I overdosed myself severely when I first tried an e-cigarette. There's more nicotine per puff than a cigarette, at least in the brand I tried.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#54

Post by agumonkey »

gwern wrote: post #38
agumonkey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vaporized liquid nicotine ? Where do you get it ? in Europe e-cigarettes are under scrutiny because the sold product is not guaranteed to be clean of toxic substances, otherwise it would be pretty great I guess.

Which is a really hilarious reason to be scrutinizing them, you have to admit.

Almost, but it's sane (pun half intended) to investigate any product even compared to very toxic ones, otherwise it's the same, people will ingest bad stuff, this time with the irony of thinking they were avoiding some.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#55

Post by agumonkey »

cnp wrote: post #33
agumonkey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vaporized liquid nicotine ? Where do you get it ? in Europe e-cigarettes are under scrutiny because the sold product is not guaranteed to be clean of toxic substances, otherwise it would be pretty great I guess.

I bought the eGO-T (meant for vaporizing plant matter) with a secondary nicotine adapter. In the US you can find both products at nearly every smoke shop. One thing that really makes a difference is that the vaporized nicotine is actually somewhat hot, like cigarette smoke, when you breathe it in. Standard pre-packaged e-cigarettes didn't cut it for me specifically for this reason.

And the nicotine refill are pure nicotine ? no weird additives ?

You mean pre-packaged e-cigs provide a bad user experience with 'cold' vapor ?

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#56

Post by gwern »

tokenadult wrote: post #23
abecedarius wrote: post #19

Anyone have any notion of the size of the IQ boost suggested by the link to a paywalled paper?

So far the IQ boost from any known drug intervention is very modest. All of the possible environmental interventions on IQ combined appear, from longitudinal studies of IQ in national populations, to have a fairly strong effect, but many of those environmental influences are still very poorly understood. A recent review article, Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkhei…

> So far the IQ boost from any known drug intervention is very modest.

Absolutely; if you look at some of my other pages, you can see for yourself how little I think of most claims to improve intelligence...

I take this unreplicated study as being more evidence for the stimulating effect of nicotine rather than any genuine peak intelligence boost, in the same way that monetary payment can increase peoples' scores on IQ tests - you wouldn't say 'the promise of money makes people smarter', but rather, 'the promise of money "enables" people to work harder'.

FWIW, I think the Nisbett review is drastically optimistic in some areas (I've criticized it on HN in the past, although I can't quite seem to find a link to my old comment in Google), so the true picture for IQ interventions is worse.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#57

Post by abecedarius »

tokenadult wrote: post #23
abecedarius wrote: post #19

Anyone have any notion of the size of the IQ boost suggested by the link to a paywalled paper?

So far the IQ boost from any known drug intervention is very modest. All of the possible environmental interventions on IQ combined appear, from longitudinal studies of IQ in national populations, to have a fairly strong effect, but many of those environmental influences are still very poorly understood. A recent review article, Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkhei…

Thank you, that looks worth a read.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#58

Post by lolwutf »

kvcrawford wrote: post #14
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!

Which ROA causes it to act as a sedative? That's very curious, indeed!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Psychoactive_effects

3rd paragaph

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#59

Post by salemh »

michaelwww wrote: post #52
cnp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I overdosed myself severely when I first tried an e-cigarette. There's more nicotine per puff than a cigarette, at least in the brand I tried.

Sometimes I find new "ecig" smokers tend to puff on them (myself included initially) much longer then a regular cigarette. Such as, vaping all day or for hours (even if it is only once every 5-10 minutes over that time period).

Nicotine levels also vary and can be customized.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#60

Post by spion »

gwern wrote: post #50
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, bu…

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

Yeah, but only for the second phase of the quit. I went half-way through the exact same first phase in a previous quit, by using patches for 2 weeks first.

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